logo

Overview of HIV Infection

   

Added on  2020-05-11

17 Pages5243 Words172 Views
Communicable diseasesStudent’s NameDate of Submission

HIV infection Overview The HIV is a retrovirus which infects the cells inside the immune systems thus altering ordamaging their ability to function. Sub Saharan Arica still continues to bear the largest burden ofHIV burden. Some of the most common routes of HIV transmission include heterosexualintercourse, female sex worker, injection drug use, and mother to child transmission (Awoleye,& Thron, 2015). There is a growing need to shift the perception of HIV risk to be in a way thatan individual person views HIV as being influenced by politics, culture, social, and economicdeterminants (Ho & Holloway, 2016). There are very many social as well as economic factorslike education, marital status and wealth accumulation which are known to affect the rate ofmanaging HIV infections. Considering the numerous effects that HIV infection causes, it iscrucial for the government and other stakeholders to come up with programs which aim atcommunication, change of behaviors and seeking of medical care services. It is clear that theeffectiveness s of HIV awareness program sis that there is other factor like poor coordination,politics and poor political will (Dube, et al., 2016). Even when considering the people withformal employment, there is stigma as well as fear which causes late disease presentation(Dijkstra et al., 2016). This means that the there are other problems which results from this andincludes low survival rates, and more infection rates. Generally, HIV is a viral infection which make the host immune system to be weak. It isamong the highest contributor of morbidity, and it is considered to be the sixth cause ifmortalities globally. In fact, the life expectancy of an HIV infected people has significantprocess. This is true because of the effectiveness conferred by the antiretroviral drugs which hasenabled many people to cope with HIV infections following the advancement to chronicinfections (Barskey et al., 2016). The initial efforts in HIV managements mainly focused on

prevention strategies as well as the treatment of symptomatic illnesses. The count of CD4indicate that there is a high level of immunosuppression. It is therefore evident that earlydiagnosis of people with HIV leads to an improvement of the effectiveness on the ARVs.Human immunodeficiency virus infects humans and chimpanzees and two thirds of global HIVinfection is found in Sub Saharan Africa (UNAIDS, 2006). Generally, HIV infections are life threatening and chronic illnesses which increases therisks of mortality among the infected people. When left untreated, HIV destroys the numbers ofwhite blood cells to a level whereby the infected body cannot fight any type of infections,indicating that any opportunistic infections like cancer, malaria and flue can easily lead to thedeath of the victim. In most cases, when a person is unable to fight opportunistic infections, thereare high chances that the white blood cells count is usually at very low a concentration (Serrano-Villar et al., 2014)It is characterized by acute viremia in excess of five million viral particles permilliliter of serum. It has also been found that HIV among IDUs is transmitted through sharingof needles (Baral et al., 2007). Mortality rates have recently decreased due to the improvedeffectiveness of highly active antiretroviral therapy. In the year 2013, Kenya had 88,620 newHIV infections among adults and 12,940 among children (NASCOP 2014). In 2012, Mombasacounty had an adult HIV prevalence of 11.1 % (NASCOP 2014). Since injection drug use is acommon global phenomenon (Dore et al., 2010), infection and transmission of HIV occursthrough sharing of contaminated drug injection equipment’s to either inject or split drugs. Othersinclude risky sexual behaviors like homosexuality, prostitution, unprotected sex and engaging insexual behaviors under the influence of drugs or in exchange of drugs (Chu et al., 2013). Sub-Saharan Africa contains only 10% of the world’s population and remains the “globalepicenter” of the HIV/AIDS epidemic (UNAIDS, 2006). This is because in 2005, an estimated

24.5 million people were living with HIV/AIDS in this region, whereby 2.7 million people hadnew viral infections, 930,000 died of AIDS. The report further indicates that in Kenya, 38.7%(278/719) of drug users reached through community outreach were reported to be sharingneedles, cookers, filters, rinse water and injection solution. Adoption of a high risk injectionpractice called “flash blood” is common among male and female drug users in Tanzania. This isa practice in which an IDU who cannot afford to purchase heroin injects the blood of anotherIDU who recently injected, in the belief that the blood contains heroin and can preventwithdrawal. In Mombasa, of the 1000 drug users referred through community outreach to HIVcounseling and testing, 31.2% (43/138) of IDUs and 6.3% (352/1546) of non-injection drug userswere HIV positive (Deveau et al., 2006). Some of the abused drugs in this county are heroin,morphine, cocaine and cannabis. Various classes of drugs are used for HIV management. In theclass of nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, lamivudine, entecavir and emitricitabine areexamples.Nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors are tenofovir, and adefovir. The class of non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors includes etravirine, rilpivirine, nevirapine, interferonsand efiverenz (Zhan and Liu, 2011).Out of the approximately 16 million IDUs worldwide, 3million are infected with HIV-1. A study to show the incidence of HIV-1 in a cohort of IDUs incentral Sydney showed an HIV-1 incidence of 0.17% per 100 people among 426 initiallyseronegative IDUs. HIV-1 has two surface proteins (Gp 41 and Gp 120) for viral entry, enzymes(integrase, reverse transcriptase and protease), and two non-covalently linked single strandedRNA genome. It is 9,800 base pairs long and has nine genes: vif, pol, gag, env, tat, rev, bif, vprand either vpu or vpx. HIV-1 is transmitted via sex with infected persons, mother-to-child,sharing of sharp infected objects, injection drug use, breastfeeding, and blood transfusion. In

End of preview

Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.

Related Documents
Hiv Aids in Sub Saharan Africa Assesment Report
|12
|4694
|22

Communicable Diseases: Global HIV Epidemiology, Role of Agent, Host and Environmental Factors
|18
|5405
|228

Using the Principles of Primary Health Care to Protect and Promote Human Immunodeficiency
|8
|2372
|314

HSH705, Needs Assessment And Health Program Planning
|28
|3073
|44

Health Concerns and Issues for Sub-Saharan African Immigrants
|7
|1843
|76

The tragedy of HIV due to Blood Transfusion Reaction
|13
|1211
|7