Sex With An Infected Person Hiv Transmission example essay topic

Karachi Medical & Dental College AWARENESS ABOUT AIDS IN THE SCHOOL GOING CHILDREN OF 9 TH & 10 TH CLASSES Group Members. Umm-e-Salma. Mon is Jal eel Ahmed. Kun war M. Aq eel. N. Jess ani. Quratulain Shah nawaz. Jamshid Submitted to: Dr. Luna A. Big Supervised by: Dr. F arhat Jaf fri Abstract Objectives: .

To find out the level of awareness about Aids in the School going children of 9th & 10th classes. Method: It's a Knowledge-Attitude study. Students were provided with Questionnaires having close ended questions. Sample size was 600 Analysis was done SPSS 8.00.

Subjects: Students of 20 school were selected. From each school 30 students were selected 15 from each class (9th & 10th) Results: . 95.8% of the students had heard about Aids... Only 55.19% of the students were willing to discuss Aids in an open discussion... 51.8% of the students think that taking care of an Aids patient spreads Aids. 54.2% of the students knew that Aids is a disease.

26.3% said it is a germ. 6.3% said it was a symptom. 9.2% didn't know what it was! INTRODUCTION Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), human viral disease that ravages the immune system, undermining the body's ability to defend itself from infection and disease. Caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), AIDS leaves an infected person vulnerable to opportunistic infections. Such infections are harmless in healthy people, but in those whose immune systems have been greatly weakened, they can prove fatal.

Although there is no cure for AIDS, new drugs are available that can prolong the life spans and improve the quality of life of infected people. Infection with HIV does not necessarily mean that a person has AIDS. Some people who have HIV infection may not develop any of the clinical illnesses that define the full-blown disease of AIDS for ten years or more. Physicians prefer to use the term AIDS for cases where a person has reached the final, life-threatening stage of HIV infection. AIDS was first identified in 1981 among homosexual men and intravenous drug users in New York and California. Shortly after its detection in the United States, evidence of AIDS epidemics grew among heterosexual men, women, and children in sub-Saharan Africa.

AIDS quickly developed into a worldwide epidemic, affecting virtually every nation. An estimated 40 million People half of them under the age of 25 worldwide were living with HIV infection or AIDS. The World Health Organization (WHO), a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN), estimates that from 1981 to the end of 2000 about 21.8 million people died as a result of AIDS. More than 4.3 million of those who died were children under the age of 15.

With a vaccine for AIDS years away and no cure on the horizon, experts believe that the most effective treatment for AIDS is to prevent the occurrence of HIV infection. Health officials focus public education programs on altering risky behaviors linked to HIV transmission, particularly unsafe sexual practices and needle-sharing by intravenous drug users. Safe-sex campaigns sponsored by health clinics, social centers, and schools encourage sexual abstinence or monogamy (sexual relations with only one partner). Education programs instruct about the proper way to use condoms to provide a protective barrier against transmission of HIV during sexual intercourse.

Needle-exchange programs, which provide clean needles to drug users, enable intravenous drug abusers to avoid sharing HIV-contaminated needles Scientists have identified three ways that HIV infections spread: sexual intercourse with an infected person, contact with contaminated blood, and transmission from an infected mother to her child before or during birth or through breastfeeding. A: Sex With an infected person HIV transmission occurs most commonly during intimate sexual contact with an infected person, including genital, anal, and oral sex. The virus is present in the infected person's semen or vaginal fluids. During sexual intercourse, the virus gains access to the bloodstream of the uninfected person by passing through openings in the mucous membrane-the protective tissue layer that lines the mouth, vagina, and rectum-and through breaks in the skin of the penis. In the United States and Canada, HIV is most commonly transmitted during sex between homosexual men, but the incidence of HIV transmission between heterosexual men and women has rapidly increased. In most other parts of the world, HIV is most commonly transmitted through heterosexual sex.

B: Contact with infected blood Direct contact with HIV-infected blood occurs when people who use heroin or other injected drugs share hypodermic needles or syringes contaminated with infected blood. Sharing of contaminated needles among intravenous drug users is the primary cause of HIV infection in eastern Europe, particularly in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Moldova. Epidemics of HIV infection among drug users have also emerged in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan in Central Asia. Less frequently, HIV infection results when health professionals accidentally stick themselves with needles containing HIV-infected blood or expose an open cut to contaminated blood. Some cases of HIV transmission from transfusions of infected blood, blood components, and organ donations were reported in the 1980's. Since 1985 government regulations in the United States and Canada have required that all donated blood and body tissues be screened for the presence of HIV before being used in medical procedures.

As a result of these regulations, HIV transmission caused by contaminated blood transfusion or organ donations is rare in North America. However, the problem continues to concern health officials in sub-Saharan Africa. Less than half of the 46 nations in this region have blood-screening policies. By some estimates only 25 percent of blood transfusions are screened for the presence of HIV. WHO hopes to establish blood safety programs in more than 80 percent of sub-Saharan countries by 2003. C: Mother-to-Child transmission: HIV can be transmitted from an infected mother to her baby while the baby is still in the woman's uterus or, more commonly, during childbirth.

The virus can also be transmitted through the mother's breast milk during breastfeeding. Mother-to-child transmission accounts for 90 percent of all cases of AIDS in children. Mother-to-child transmission is particularly prevalent in Africa, where the number of women infected with HIV is ten times the rate found in other regions. Studies conducted in several cities in southern Africa in 1998 indicate that up to 45 percent of pregnant women in these cities carry HIV.

D: Misperceptions About HIV transmission: The routes of HIV transmission are well documented by scientists, but health officials continually grapple with the public's unfounded fears concerning the potential for HIV transmission by other means. HIV differs from other infectious viruses in that it dies quickly if exposed to the environment. No evidence has linked HIV transmission to casual contact with an infected person, such as a handshake, hugging, or kissing, or even sharing dishes or bathroom facilities. Studies have been unable to identify HIV transmission from modes common to other infectious diseases, such as an insect bite or inhaling virus-infected droplets from an infected person's sneeze or cough. Pakistan presently has a low HIV / AIDS prevalence of 0.1 percent-equivalent to an esti- mated 80,000 HIV-positive adults. HIV has been reported in all four provinces of Pakistan, and is spread predominantly through sexual contact, which accounts for 70 percent of regis- tered HIV cases.

Another 19 percent of HIV cases are attributed to exposure to contaminated blood or blood products. Pakistan has not implemented a universal blood screening system; in 1994, only an estimated 10 percent of the total blood supply was properly screened for HIV. The third most common route of HIV infection is injecting drug use, which accounts for 4 percent of cases, followed by mother-to-child transmission, which accounts for 1.3 per- cent of cases. When HIV first appeared in Pakistan in the late 1980's, the majority of cases were found among non-Pakistanis in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city. The first AIDS case was reported in 1987 in a foreign sailor.

It became public belief that Pakistanis could not be infected with HIV because of their strong moral, religious, and cultural traditions. This belief has fueled Pakistan's reluctance to address high-risk behaviors associated with HIV infection. From 1990 to 1995, an increasing number of Pakistanis who traveled or lived abroad became infected with HIV, returned to Pakistan, and spread the disease within the country. The first recognized case of a mother infecting her child through breastfeeding occurred in 1993. From 1995 to 1999, HIV / AIDS emerged in populations at high risk of infection, including sex workers, injecting drug users, and prison inmates.

Infections among the general popula- tion also began to rise during this period. Migrant laborers and transport workers were iden- t ified as high transmitters of HIV along major trade routes, and inadequate sterilization of medical equipment has contributed to the broadening of the epidemic. As of September 2000, 1,501 HIV cases had been reported to the Pakistani National AIDS Programme. Widespread under reporting and lim- ited care-seeking by HIV-infected persons account for the wide gap between reported and estimated HIV / AIDS cases. 87 percent of reported HIV cases occur in men. 52 percent of HIV cases occur among 20- to 40-year-olds.

63 percent of Pakistan's population is under the age of 25; this population is at highest risk of infection. PCL Map Collection, University of Texas The male-to-female ratio for HIV infection is 6.9: 1; the male-to-female ratio for AIDS cases is 7.8: 1. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV / AIDS (UNAIDS), a number of factors could facilitate the spread of HIV / AIDS in Pakistan, including: A high population density of 179 people per square kilometer; High rates of labor migration both within and outside the country; The presence of an estimated 1.2 million Afghan refugees with low levels of access to care and HIV education materials; A thriving commercial sex industry. A 1996 study indicated that only 60 percent of Pakistani sex workers had ever heard of AIDS, and of this 60 percent, only 44 percent knew that HIV could be transmitted via sex- ual contact; Presence of injecting drug use; Low rates of condom use; Stigma and discrimination associated with certain behaviors leading to HIV transmit- sion, which impede access to HIV / AIDS information and services; and Low literacy and low social status of women, which makes them more vulnerable to HIV infection. Methodology For the purpose of conducting this study five districts of Karachi. East, West, Mali, South and Central.

The purpose behind this was to get a fair idea of the awareness of AIDS amongst the students of Karachi as a whole. From each of the five district, four schools were selected. To eliminate bias two types of schools were selected: -. Government.

Private Each of the two types of schools were sub-divided into. Boys. Girls Hence from each district of Karachi four schools were chosen: -. Government Girls. Government Boys. Private Girls.

Private Boys From each of the schools students were selected from the Ninth and Tenth classes by systematic sampling. From each class Fifteen (15) students were selected. Hence from each school a total of thirty students were chosen. From a district Hundred and twenty students (30 x 4) were selected bringing the total sample size to Six hundred (600) students (120 x 5). Each student was provided with a Questionnaire. Each Questionnaire had twenty-five close ended questions.

A sample of the Questionnaire is attached. The students were asked to tick the appropriate responses. The analysis of the data Obtained was done on SPSS 8.0 Response to Question # 1 (Have you heard about AIDS?) Govt. Boys Govt.

Girls Private Girls Private Boys Total Have u heard about AIDS Yes 148 139 139 149 575 No 2 11 11 1 25 Total 150 150 150 150 600 Response to Question # 3 (What is AIDS?) Disease: 54.2% Germ: 26.3% Symptom: 6.3% Don't Know: 9.2% Response to Question # 6 (Can taking care of an AIDS patient spread AIDS?) Yes: 51.8% No: 33% Don't Know: 15.2% Response to Question # 23 (Have your parents ever discussed AIDS with you?) Response to Question # 25 (Are you willing to discuss AIDS in an open discussion?) Results: . Some Suggestions for the increase in awareness and knowledge of the children. To make the children realize that there is nothing shameful in discussing AIDS. To make them realize that AIDS is a constant danger amongst them and they are not safe from it! To run School awareness programs in which both the students and teachers educated about Aids... To Hold different competitions on this topic so that the students might take an active interest!

To run special programs for parents making them realize how important it is to discuss AIDS with their children as nobody can educate a child better than the parents.