Im doing a case study in microbiology and i need information on the folllowing questions...
1. Will AIDS awareness to third worlk countires help the AIDS epidemic?
2. What are the major modes of HIV transmission in the US and Africa? IDU/Heterosexual/Homosexual contact vs Verticle transmission?
3. What portion of the governments budget is directed towards dealing with AIDS issues? How much is being spent of public health, treatment or prevention?
4. What are the benefits of providing expensive treatment to HIV positive patients who will die anyway?
5. Are there any successful national treatment programs?
6. What are the mental differences of infected individual from America vs. Africa?
7. How are medical practices in Africa and the US different in treating AIDS patients?
If you could help me answer any of these I would greatly appriciate it! THANKS! Hi there
There is a lot of information required here that it would be very hard to put it all here.
Here are some simple answers to most of the questions.
1. YES. But awareness alone will not solve the big puzzle. In Uganda awareness has been comined with Condom use, abstinence, and faithfullness coupled with other methods like routine screening for HIV.
2. In Africa its probably 90% heterosexual transmission and 5% vertical. There have been very few documented cases of homosexual transmission in Africa.
In the US i think its probably 80% homosexual and IVD users combined.
3. I dont have the exact figure but i know that the PEPPFAR program and the global fund are putting in a lot of money in treatment and control. This also includes research. I also know that governments are also involved in the control and treatment but the amount of money involved depends on individual governments.
4. The benefits of providing treatment to anyone is to stop disease progression like in any other disease or illness. With HIV we know that if individuals are appropriately treated they will live normal productive lives. The treatment highly increases the life in number of years. I should also add that HIV and AIDS affects mostly the productive ages of 15-45. Therefore not treating them would create a situation where there is undertproduction from families to entire nations. Families would be forced to rely on federal grants and nations would be appropriating a bigger part of the national budget to feed and support socially the families of the AIDS patients.
I should also add that the prices of he drugs have been remarkably susidized by the pharmaceutical companies, and with the patenting of generic drugs they are now mopre cheaper and more affordable. In otherwords its actually more expensive not to treat someone with HIV that to treat them.
5. The PEPFAR program has been very successful in treatment. Other programs include the AIDS RELIEF, the GLOBAL FUND. Different countries have different programs but most of them are directed at treatment and prevention and awareness.
6. I would say that there are major differences in both continents considering the health infrastructure is very different. Most of HIV in the US is detected early and appropriately treated well enough to avoid the effects of HIV mental effects like HIV dementia, while in Africa most of the HIV is detedted late and mo st have progressed into stage 4 disease.
The other issue is the psychological effects and the burden it puts on family members and relatives and communities.
There is better support systems in the US.
7. Ther are not really much differences in the medical treatment of HIV world wide. The only differenec is the availability of recourses. In the US new drugs are always being tried and there is better monitoring of drug reactions and interactions.
An example is in the US, viral loads and resistance profiles are done before treatment while such services are not available in Africa.
Having worked in both places i think there is a better adherence profile in African patients than in patients in the US. 1. No
2. All of the abobe
3. very little ( a few billion)
4. There are none...drug companies want to make more money.
5. Drug cocktails costing thousands of dollars (again drug companies want your money)
6. Don't think there are any.
7. In Africa there is little if any reatment. In the U.S. we keep you alive so you can infect others and contribute to population control. 1. Yes and no, appart from awareness they need medicines.
2. in africa is mostly heterosexual. In Us homosexual/heterosexual/IVDU (in that order).
3. Check www.cdc.gov and look for HIV.
4. What do you mean? You probably need to research a little bit on this one. HIv nowadays is a chronic disease just like diabetes or high blood pressure. People have almost normal life expectancy. Yes, everybody would die eventually, but does that mean that if you're in an accident we won't take care of you because you will die sooner or later?
5. There are successful national tretment programs. Check out Ryan White.
6. Mental differences? what do you mean by that?
7. In the Us we have more resources, patients can be checked regularly and receive potent and effective medicines and thus their life expectancy is normal. In africa that doesn't exist for most people. 1. AIDS awareness will help third world countries because some of the populations are reaching 10 percent. Malnutrition is a major epidemec in African countries and costs of basic AIDS medications
2.According to the numbers: in Africa it heterosexual transmision. In America, a bigger slice goes to IV drugusers and gay....I won't go futher people are all over the GAY QUESTION.
3.Not enough www.cdc.com or www.nih.com
4. They are human beings and maybe it's luck of the dray and live a long time becuase there a least five different strain of HIV.
5. G. Bush doesn't know
6. More likely to get help in America
7. Go directly to the drug manufacturer. Sorry I don't have a clue. | 