Despite the progress the U.S. has made in managing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the last 32 years, the phenomenon has remained a major challenge for people infected with the virus, their relatives, the health system, and society in general. The epidemic was first detected in the U.S. in 1969 (Siplon, 2002). It is believed that the epidemic entered the country via one infected immigrant. By the late 1970s, the medical personnel in the country started detecting cancer and Kaposi sarcoma, which are usually associated with the Mediterranean elderly patients. They confused cancer pneumocystis pneumonia with GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) before it eventually came to be called HIV/AIDS (Siplon, 2002). Although the U.S. has tried to manage the epidemic, the following facts about the epidemic remain the same; every 9.5 minutes, someone in the U.S. is infected with HIV. Cases of HIV/AIDS have been diagnosed in every state of America; the U.S. loses approximately 17,000 people to HIV/AIDS every year. Currently, the number of new HIV infection cases is stabilizing, the medics diagnose about 50,000 new infection cases every year, and women are the most infected with HIV as compared to men in the U.S., the group that is severely infected by HIV in the U.S. is the gay and bisexual men (Siplon, 2002).
Being HIV positive is different from having AIDS. Being HIV positive means being infected with the virus. HIV means Human Immunodeficiency Virus. AIDS, on the other hand, stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. AIDS comprises a range of opportunistic diseases and symptoms associated with the harm the HIV does to an individual’s immune system. As HIV infection develops, the immune system becomes more damaged and an individual’s body becomes more susceptible to infections. Opportunistic infections like Tuberculosis start to show up when a person has HIV (Walker, 1994). The difference between HIV and AIDS is that HIV develops into AIDS once the number of specific types of cells in the immune system referred to as CD4 drops to less than 200 (Garrett, 2005).
Today, more than 1.5 million U.S. citizens are living with HIV infection and approximately 1 out of 5 U.S. citizens are not aware of their HIV infection (Purcell, Johnson & Lansky, 2012). Homosexuals are the most vulnerable to infection. Young blacks or African Americans are the most affected group by the epidemic in the U.S. (Cante, 2008). According to CDC estimates, 1.5 million persons aged 13 years and above in the US are living with the virus (CDC, 2013). About 2 million are not aware of their HIV status. Over the past decade, the percentage of those living with the virus has been increasing whereas the yearly percentage of incidence has remained constant (Purcell, Johnson, & Lansky, 2012). Despite this, the pace at which new infections are occurring is high among the vulnerable groups.
The U.S. has been making progress through anti-retroviral treatments. Initially, the country introduced the three-drug anti-HIV treatment, which is also referred to as Cocktails. The treatment contains protease inhibitors (Purcell, Johnson & Lansky, 2012). Currently, the country has introduced medications, which are increasingly effective when fighting against the virus and less aggressive to the human body. Although death rates due to infection in the U.S. have come down, the rate of new infections has remained high (Purcell, Johnson & Lansky, 2012). In addition, the death rate has decreased among the white population in the U.S. whereas the death rate has increased among black Americans and other population segments.
The most common drug used to manage HIV/AIDS is Atripa, which is a single pill recommended for daily usage. The pill contains emtricitabine, efavirenz and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, which are capable of reducing viral replications to one in a billion. Others include Complera and Stribild (Walker, 1994). In the past, HIV treatment was recommended to individuals with suppressed immune systems. The current scientific research on the epidemic indicates that HIV-infected individuals should start treatment as soon as the diagnosis is made and the patient should be psychologically prepared for the medication (Walker, 1994). The reason is that HIV-positive individuals are at risk of developing AIDS and other opportunistic diseases if they start taking ARVs immediately after they are diagnosed. Hence, HIV treatment is recommended to every HIV-infected individual, but the treatment is more urgent to victims whose immune systems have been weakened by the virus. Ant-retroviral therapy increases the CD4 cell count, which prevents HIV virus from multiplying (Walker, 1994). Hence ARVs reduce viral load while increasing CD4 count. The level to which the viral load is reduced and the CD4 is increased will depend on the type of ARVs because they range from entry inhibitors, protease inhibitors, and integrate inhibitors among others (Walker, 1994).
Today, the life expectancy of people infected with HIV has increased as compared to the early years. The type of complications and causes of death are more observed today as compared the to early 1980s (Siplon, 2002). For instance, today there is ARV treatment, which is friendly to the human body and unfriendly to the virus. Counseling methods on the epidemic have been popularized in the U.S. to reduce stigma among the infected, affected and the non-infected, and people were informed of HIV, and how to live positively with it (Siplon, 2002). This has aided the infected to accept their condition and live positively with the virus, hence prolonging their life expectancy.
If one is subjected to unprotected sex, rape, or sharing drug injecting equipment with an infected person, the person is required to undergo post-exposure prophylaxis to curb the development of the virus (CDC, 2013). PEP prevents HIV from getting into the body’s cells hence preventing one from becoming infected with the virus. PEP should be administered to one within 72 hours of exposure (CDC, 2013).
Despite the years and after all the scientific information available through the media, some myths and stigmas remain among the general population denoting a great ignorance of HIV/AIDS, for instance, the vision of the National Strategy against HIV/AIDS for the U.S.A. (Federal resources, 2010), drawn by Barack Obama in 2010 states that the U.S. is free of discrimination against HIV/AIDS infected people despite one’s race, gender, social status and age (Federal resources, 2010). This has not been realized as per the information given above. Myths and stigma on HIV/AIDS remain in the general U.S. population to date.
An effective vaccine to prevent the infection has not come to the market, hence there is no cure for HIV/AIDS (Bogart & Thorburn, 2005). Despite this, every person needs to be aware of the fact that all of us are at risk of getting infected. It is only through a concerted commitment that society will overcome the battle against the epidemic.
References
Bogart, L., & Thorburn, S. (2005). Are HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs a barrier to HIV prevention among African Americans? Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, 38 (2), 213–218.
Cante, R. C. (2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing.
Center for Disease Control (CDC). (2013). Monitoring selected national HIV prevention and care objectives by using HIV surveillance data—United States and 6 U.S. dependent areas. HIV Surveillance Supplemented Report, 18 (5), 1-24.
Federal resources. (2010). what is the national HIV/AIDS strategy? Web.
Garrett, L. (2005). The Lessons of HIV/AIDS. Foreign Affairs, 84(4), 51 – 64.
Purcell, D. Johnson, C.H., & Lansky, A. (2012). Estimating the population size of men who have sex with men in the United States to obtain HIV and syphilis rates. Open AIDS Journal, 6 (1), 98-107.
Siplon, P. (2002). AIDS and the policy struggle in the United States. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
Walker, R. S. (1994). AIDS: Today, Tomorrow: an Introduction to the HIV Epidemic in America (2nd ed.). Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press Intl.