When you hear the word “AIDS”, what do you think about it? Homosexuality? Heterosexuality? Drug injection? What is exactly meaning of AIDS? AIDS is disease of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It has a variety of spread ways such as sexual transmission, perinatal transmission and blood products. It was first recognized by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981 and its cause, HIV, identified in the early 1980s. Nowadays, AIDS is a pandemic. Although treatments for it are better, there is no known antidote or antiretroviral remedy diminish both the mortality and incidence of HIV injection. When I saw The New York Times, a headline named “New H.I.V. Cases Steady Despite Better Treatment” caught my interested.
The article is mainly about American prevalent is still focused chiefly on young black gay men. Activists express the tenacious H.I.V. infection rate shows that the government impediment policy is a collapse. Federal officials confess that the epidemic will increase if prevention does not get better. However, Philip Alcabes, a public health epidemiologist who works at Hunter College in Manhattan, said that it's not clear about prevention is a failure. Because the average adult's oppuntunity of confronting H.I.V infection – 0.02 percent a year or are rather low. It is not sensible to anticipate which a sexually transmitted virus will vanish in America, or all over the world (¶ 12).
From my point of view, I agree that Philip Alcabes's idea that we cannot expect that all of sexually transmitted virus will disappear in anywhere. That's absolutly impossible. However, people can guard it as they can. As I mentioned early, AIDS can be transmitted in three main ways such as sexual transimission, tranimission through blood and mother- to – child transimission. For this reasion, people can prevent it from these three modes.
First of all, people should have safer sexual behaviour. There are numerous ways to urge people to adopt it. For instance, media campaigns, peer education and small group counselling. People can be educated from those ways, because all of them are education. All – inclusive sex education for young people is a necessary part of AIDS prevention. This should include training in life skills such as definition of sexual relationships, correct and definite information about how to practise safer sex. Researches have shown that this kind of sex education is more effective than education that focuses solely on teaching temperance until marriage.
Moreover, people shoud screen all blood supplies for the virus by heat – treating blood products. Because screening is not quie 100 precent accurate, it is reasonable to place some restrictions on who is qualified to contribute. So, decreasing the number of unnecessary transfusions also helps to prune risk.
Finally, people should focus on reducing the number of babies infected. The first step towards it is to prevent HIV infection in women, and to prevent unwanted pregnancies. There are a lot of thinks that can be done to help a pregnant woman with HIV to evade to her child. Taking some antiretroviral drugs to her during pregnancy and to her baby can greatly reduce the chances of the child becoming infected.
In conclusin, we could stop transmission quickly, but it doesn't end the problem because people are infected with HIV for life. It takes long time. Of courese, we need to do a lot of operational research to find a better treatment for AIDS. Although now we can't end AIDS, we can try to avoid it as we can.
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References
Donald. G and Moneil. Jr. (2011, Aug,3). New H.I.V. Cases Steady Despite Better Treatment. The New York Times. Retrieved August 6, 2011 from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/health/04hiv.html?_r=1&ref=health
from ¶4 When and where do you think the best time to teach young people about having safe sex practices?
ReplyDeleteBest time maybe in the middle school, I think.
ReplyDeleteBut best teacher should be their parents.
Anyways, Thai society most parents are too shy to teach their own kids.
I agree Golf's idea that parents are children's best teachers.
ReplyDeleteFrom my point of view,the best time to start talking to children about sex at an early age. Most children will often ask where the babies come from from when they're very young.
Children need this information before they start to experience bodily changes. If they don't have any idea about it, they may be worried or afraid.As a result, children cannot concentrate on study or other things.
This reminds me of an article I read in the BBC a couple of days ago, about a technique that enables large scale circumcision of adult men, which is known to reduce HIV transmission by about 60%.
ReplyDeleteSee:
Circumcision: Rwanda's quick cut to fight HIV. (2011, July 24). BBC News. Retrieved August 7, 2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14111847
and, for a related video presentation to practise your listening skills,
New device makes circumcision safer and cheaper. (2011, July 21). BBC News. Retrieved August 7, 2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-14231466
The company that provides the simple device wants to make profit, but in doing so, they can contribute enormous good to poor nations and save literally millions of lives. Capitalism does not mean not caring about others, and I think is a much more efficient, and fair, way of making economic decisions than are the control economies favoured by communism and the like - which are far too popular in many countries today. (We will be reading some economics later this term. But feel free to disagree with me immediately if you like.)
And is anyone on earth as remotely philanthropic as the mega-capitalists Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who follow the long tradition of the very rich in America freely and carefully using their wealth to help society?
ReplyDeleteBut I'm in danger now of getting completely off Gloria's topic.