AIDS Prevention, Timely Detection and Management December 1
December 1, 2009 is World AIDS Day, and countries all over the world take time out to remember those who have succumbed to this disease and to look into what has been and is being done and what else should be done towards the prevention, timely detection and management of the disease.
HIV/AIDS has infected more people in South Africa than in any other country in the world, so it is but fitting that the executive director of the United Nations AIDS program (UNAIDS), Michel Sidibe, is there today. Sidibe shares: “If I am not in South Africa for World AIDS Day, I don’t know where I should be.”
A study conducted by Harvard has determined that South Africa saw more than 300,000 premature deaths related to AIDS which were entirely preventable had the appropriate medication been administered to AIDS patients as well as to pregnant women in order to prevent the passing on of the HIV virus to their respective children. During the administration of the country’s former President, Thabo Mbeki, there were doubts regarding the link between HIV and AIDS. The regime’s health minister also did not trust life-extending drugs developed for AIDS patients and promoted beets and garlic as treatment for AIDS.
The delayed action of health officials is being pointed as the cause of preventable deaths among AIDS patients in South Africa, a situation that the current regime under President Jacob Zuma hopes to turn around.
In the United States, approximately 1.1 million people are infected by AIDS. New cases occur at a rate of 40,000 annually, and the challenge of the length of time between infection and the appearance of symptoms still remains to be an obstacle. A person infected by the HIV virus may not experience symptoms until as much as 10 or 15 years after initial infection; the absence of symptoms, however, will not prevent a patient from passing on the virus.
Prevention, therefore, is the best way to curb the spread of the disease. So too is timely testing, which means that anyone who feels that he or she may have been at risk should get tested. Testing need not be expensive, invasive and lengthy; it can involve a simple oral swab, with the results available in as little as 20 minutes.
Tags: AIDS death, AIDS prevention, AIDS testing, HIV testing, HIV treatment, World AIDS Day
HIV aware Dec 1
Prevention is the key element. Education and prevention can help to stop spreading the HIV virus.