The Aids Epidemic

AIDS : Can It Happen to Me

AIDS : Can It Happen to Me

A Brief Essay on the Prevalence of Unrecognized HIV Infection (Course and Course No (Name of Student (Name of College /University

AIDS : Can It Happen to Me

If only he told me he men over women . If only he came out with it . We could have been just friends (Vargas , 2003 ) says a woman who had been infected with HIV by the man she had married and whose two-year old child died of HIV complications

This and many other similar

stories of unrecognized HIV infection continue to be documented in the record books

The acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS ) epidemic is growing in all areas of the world (Altman , 2006 . The AIDS Epidemic Update of the United Nations Programme on HIV /AIDS (UNAIDS ) and the World Health Organization (WHO ) reported that 39 .5 million people are presently living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV , the virus that causes AIDS (UNAIDS and WHO , 2006 ,

.1 . Yet despite this alarming figure , many still believed that HIV infection is far from happening to them . Was this disregard caused by urbane human confidence on the advances of its medical treatment nowadays ? Or was it simply - Why bother ? The persons that I interact (or even fool around ) with everyday do not carry with them that dreaded virus

If you would have agreed with the latter , beware ! Things do not seem like what they appear to be

A high prevalence of unrecognized HIV infection has now become a crucial concern particularly among men having sex with men (MSM . Although this does not exclude women , injection drug users and those who engaged in heterosexual sex , such prevalence has moved various AIDS organizations to heighten their campaign for HIV testing and awareness

In the United States , a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC ) revealed that close to fifty percent of those found to be infected with HIV were unaware of their infection (CDC , 2005 . And of those with unrecognized infection , almost seventy percent of them did not pursue for HIV tests because they were afraid to find out (2005 ) if they are positive of the virus

The activities that may allow HIV transmission and the bodily fluids that the virus can be transmitted through has now become a household knowledge owing to the massive education drive for years . Perhaps many might boast that their having a `healthy lifestyle ' and their familiarity with HIV transmission prevented them from being infected with the virus . But the only way - or say , the ultimate way - to determine if a person is infected is to be tested for HIV infection Abstaining or disengaging in high-risk behaviors and activities like unprotected or heterosexual sex and intravenous drug use cannot , in any manner , free one from getting that noxious virus . It does guarantee so

Many HIV-positive people did not , at all , develop any symptom until after around a decade had past . Early prevention would mean more opportunity for...