Aids :: Free AIDS Essays

Aids The issue of human immunodeficiency virus/ help has been a developing concern since the early 1980s. It is an issue that has sparked fear in everyone, but friendship has narrowed it down to certain people that can contract the AIDS virus. The stereotypical AIDS victim is not an IV drug user or a practicing homosexual it is anyone, anyone who has unprotected sex, anyone who has had a blood transfusion in the past twenty years, or anyone who was innocently brought into the world by an infected mother. As unfair as it is, HIV/AIDS can attack someone whom society would have never branded as a stereotypical AIDS victim. This issue of HIV/AIDS demand to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed now. The epidemic of HIV/AIDS is on the rise in the province of Massachusetts. As many as 15,000 residents may be infected with the virus and not be aware of it and the majority of these victims are between the ages of twenty and forty. The single solution to this problem, as is the only s olution to any problem, is prevention through education. Of course it is easy to hand out literature and condoms to adults, but are they sincerely going to listen? As a community, we can encourage HIV/AIDS testing, but will it be taken advantage of? Since these are adults cosmos familiarized with HIV/AIDS, how to contract it, the consequences, and the raw statistics, they will probably disregard all of the information. Education on the issue of HIV/AIDS obviously needs to begin at an earlier age. HIV is spread most commonly by sexual contact with an infected partner. The virus can enter the embody through the lining of the vagina, vulva, penis, rectum or mouth during sex. HIV also is spread through contact with infected blood. Prior to the screening of blood for evidence of HIV infection and before the introduction in 1985 of light up-treating techniques to destroy HIV in blood products, HIV was transmitted through transfusions of contaminated blood. Today, because of blood scre ening and heat treatment, the risk of acquiring HIV from such transfusions is extremely small. HIV frequently is spread among injection drug users by the sharing of needles or syringes contaminated with thin quantities of blood of someone infected with the virus. However, transmission from patient to health-care worker or vice-versa via accidental sticks with contaminated needles or other medical instruments is rare.