Assignment Communicable Diseases Nursing
Added on 2020-05-04
16 Pages4940 Words781 Views
Disease and DisordersPublic and Global HealthHealthcare and Research
|
|
|
Running Head: COMMUNICABLE DISEASECommunicable diseaseName of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor Note
1COMMUNICABLE DISEASEThe essay deals with the communicable disease treat Human Immunodeficiency Virus orHIV. HIV is recognised to be the chronic disease and has produced one of the largest pandemicsin history. This disease has caused severe economical and social impact associated withunexpected illnesses and deaths. As a result of the advances in the treatment process the chronicdisease has changed in the last three decades (van de Laar & Richel, 2017). In the last decade,after the HIV was declared by the United Nations as unprecedented human catastrophe, theprevention and treatment of AIDS disease more accessible. There are effective and safe andintegrating of HIV services into existing health systems. It led to dramatic decline of the majorhealth problems due to HIV. However, there are new HIV infections emerging that marks AIDSas public health threat (Montaner et al., 2014). In response to 1.6 million new HIV infectionsand 600,000 deaths per year, new targets are set by WHO. There is a growing body of literatureworking to identify the emergence and re-emergence of HIV infections as it has become thehealth problem for significant proportion of the population (Jones et al., 2014). The incidence ofthis emerging disease has increased in last 20 years and could increase more in near future. Thereason for this new outbreaks or re-emergence of infections is the complex interaction betweenthe host and the pathogen, which is influenced by the natural and the social environment.Further, there is the change in the climate and the ecology that led to the environmentalmodification and imbalances. This increased the chances of human contact with the virus in newforms which created favourable conditions for emergence of new HIV infections (Serrano-Villaret al., 2014). This constitutes the rationale for the topic chosen for this essay. The aim of theessay is to perform the critical review of the literature on HIV, which is the emerging andremerging disease threat. The literature review includes the role of the pathogenic agent, host andenvironmental factors, and the potential policy responses.
2COMMUNICABLE DISEASERole of the agent:The role of the pathogenic agent comes from the trick evolving capacity of virus. Theevolving capacity of the infection was observed when the virus was found to jump from oneprimate host to other that can be human or chimpanzee. The origin of the virus is traced back tosub-Saharan Africa (60–70 years ago). The pathogenic agent is clever enough to transmit itselfvia infected blood and related products. The virus is transmitted effectively from maternalcirculation to fetal blood before or during delivery. Therefore, its transmission is highlyfacilitated by the sexual promiscuity, poverty, and prostitution and consequently the spread ofinfection. The virus propagated throughout world by sex tourism, increase in gay community,and intravenous drug abusers. The mode of transmission of the virus is significantly variableacross the region and the most prominent mode of transmission was heterosexual. Extensivespread of HIV is possible through travel from rural areas to cities and internationally through airtravel (Lowenthal et al., 2014). These studies to some extent give an hint of why HIV virus canemerge, but are not sufficient in explaining its detailed role as pathogenic agent. As per the immunological studies conducted using the HIV viruses it was found that thevirus displays cunning fitness. The virus has evolved to attack the human immune cells thatdestroy the body emergency response system to fight off the invading organisms. The role of thevirus is to destroy the CD4 cells. It is often called as T cells. The virus rapidly destroys this cellsovertime that it becomes difficult for the body to fight of the infection. When the condition isuntreated, the number of the CD4 cells in the body reduces giving chance to opportunisticinfections. Cancers are other disease that takes advantage of the weak immunity (Morens &Fauci, 2013).
3COMMUNICABLE DISEASEThe role of the pathogenic agent comes from its capability to enter the host as cell freevirions or infected cells. The route of transmission alters the course of HIV infectionsubsequently. The pathogenic agent has long incubation period. Together with multiple mode oftransmission, the virus has the ability to defiance the efforts of vaccine development. During theacute HIV infection, within 2-4 weeks, there is only flu like symptoms. At this stage mostpeople are unaware that there blood consist of large amount of virus and is very contagious. It isdifficult to diagnose as at this stage a person may not feel sick at all. The virus also transmitsitself to other hosts during the antiretroviral therapy. In most cases the HIV infection is notdetected by the HV tests. This nature of the virus may be considered one of the factors foremergence (Mumtaz et al., 2014). Due to vulnerable population, the chance of HIV emergenceincreases. It has been found in many observational and case control studies that HIV onceintroduced in the vulnerable population spreads rapidly from one member to other increasing theinfections. HIV was found to have the capability to sustain within the population whichfacilitates its emergence after spreading rapidly (Marston et al., 2014). The drawback of thesestudies includes fewer hints on the specific property of the virus to remerge. The re-emergence of the HIV is the outcome of the acquired resistance of the pathogensto the antimicrobial medications. Studies on re-emergence of the virus showed that virus canchange its structure over time. As a result the drugs administered previously no longer workagainst it. Due to change in the structural protein, the virus becomes resistant to the drugs. Thispathogenic agent plays a crucial role in mutation. A particular strain can mutate itself at a ratethat is more rapid than the mutating rate of influenza. Therefore, it is troublesome to designvaccine against HIV. Moreover, the virus has the capacity to hide from different components ofthe immune system (Wu et al., 2013). This findings were confirmed by the genetic and molecular
End of preview
Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.
Related Documents
Essay on Ebola Outbreak Preventionlg...
|14
|4066
|199
Communicable Diseases: Global HIV Epidemiology, Role of Agent, Host and Environmental Factorslg...
|18
|5405
|228
Communicable Disease: Essaylg...
|13
|4813
|56
JOURNAL: EBOLA AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH TRIAD INSTRUCTIONS.lg...
|4
|494
|31
FND35009 Reading in contemporary societylg...
|12
|3484
|20
Epidemiology of Communicable Disease | Studylg...
|11
|3193
|74