HIV/AIDS & AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN

We do not know how many people developed AIDS in the 1970s , or indeed in the years before . Neither do we know , and we probably never will know where the AIDS virus HIV originated (see our origins page for some theories . But what we do know is : Whatever the case , The dominant feature of this first period was silence , for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV ) was unknown and transmission was not accompanied by signs or symptoms salient enough to be noticed . While rare , sporadic case reports of AIDS and sero-archaeological studies have documented

human infections with HIV prior to 1970 , available data suggest that the current pandemic started in the mid- to late 1970s . By 1980 , HIV had spread to at least five continents (North America , South America , Europe , Africa and Australia . During this period of silence , spread was unchecked by awareness or any preventive action and approximately 100 ,000-300 ,000 persons may have been infected . This essay will examine the history of the HIV /AIDS virus , its spread , its prevention and some of the challenges faced by infected persons in coping with the coping . The essay will also focus on some modes of prevention and the challenges faced by children who have been rendered orphans as a result of this pandemic disease . The essay will mostly relate to the case of African American women

In July 1981 , the New York Times reported an outbreak of a rare form of cancer among gay men in New York and California . This gay cancer ' as it was called at the time was later identified as Kaposi 's Sarcoma , the face of AIDS . About the same time , emergency rooms in New York City began to see a rash of seemingly healthy young men presenting with fevers , flu-like symptoms , and a rare pneumonia called Pneumocystis (Altman 1981 )This was the beginning of what has become the biggest health care concern in modern history . Twenty-five years later the disease still plagues society . How did we get to this point ? Take a look back at 25 years of AIDS . As stated above , 1981 saw the emergence of Kaposi 's Sarcoma and Pneumocystis among gay men in New York and California . When the Centers for Disease Control reported the new outbreak they called it GRID (gay-related immune deficiency stigmatizing the gay community as carriers of this deadly disease However , cases started to be seen in heterosexuals , drug addicts , and people who received blood transfusions , proving the syndrome knew no boundaries (Altman , 1981

Later on in 1983 , researchers at the Pasteur Institute in France isolate a retrovirus that they believe is related to the outbreak of AIDS Thirty-three countries around the world have confirmed cases of the disease that was once limited to New York and California . Controversy arises a year later when the US government announces their scientist Dr . Robert Gallo isolates a retrovirus HTLV-III , which he too claims is responsible for AIDS . Two years later it 's confirmed that HTLV-III and the Pasteur retrovirus are indeed...