Health Issue: Analyzing the Underlying Causes of HIV/AIDS in Swaziland

This essay, prepared for the System04104 course, examines the underlying causes of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Swaziland. It highlights several key social determinants of health contributing to the spread of the disease, including poverty, illiteracy, gender inequality, lack of education about HIV/AIDS, and insufficient social and government support. The analysis emphasizes how poverty forces people into risky behaviors, while gender inequality and lack of awareness among women exacerbate the situation. The essay also touches upon the impact of pregnant women transmitting the virus to their children and the role of uneducated mothers. The author uses references like Unicef and other research papers to support the arguments and provide a comprehensive overview of the challenges Swaziland faces in combating the epidemic.

Running Head: HIV/AIDS
Health Issue (HIV/AIDS)
Essay
System04104
5/2/2019

HIV/AIDS
1
Underlying Causes of HIV/AIDS in Swaziland
There are several major causes behind this dangerous disease in Swaziland (Unicef,
2016). Poverty, Illiteracy, Infection among women, gender inequality, lack of education
about HIV/AIDS, and lack in social and local government supports are some of key reasons
among them.
Poverty in people is one of the social determinants of HIV/AIDS. Poverty in people
forces them to sex for food and earning money that leads to infection of HIV with one person
to another person. Apart from this, gender inequality, lack of education among people,
income inequality some of the reason, which forces women towards HIV/AIDS (Alexis
Martin, 2018). Women are backbone of society but in Swaziland 39.2% of pregnant women
are suffering from HIV and it is dramatically increase in the country. The infection transfers
from pregnant women to the children and it also increasing in child headed households. The
physical relationship between HIV patient husband and wife is also a major cause of
spreading HIV in people (Xie, Zheng, Huang, Yuan, & Lu, 2019). The low status of women
in society is also a major cause because people use them as a means of reproduction and do
not care that they are transferring HIV to the women and future children as well (Unicef,
2016). People are not aware about HIV neither they have any knowledge that how they can
avoid this disease to spread in the society. Women are not aware that through breast-feeding
they are transferring HIV to their children. Uneducated mother pass their HIV virus to their
babies. However, the failure of government to provide education among these people is also a
reason for high number of HIV/AIDS patient in Swaziland (Kohen, 2017).

HIV/AIDS
2
References
Alexis Martin (2018). The Social and Economic Determinants of HIV/AIDS: Time for Action
[online]. Retrieve from: https://www.thebodypro.com/article/the-social-and-
economic-determinants-of-hivaids-ti
Kohen, J. (2017). Swaziland makes major strides against its AIDS epidemic [online]. Retrieve
from: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/swaziland-makes-major-strides-
against-its-aids-epidemic
Unicef (2016) HIV and AIDS [online]. Retrieve from:
https://www.unicef.org/swaziland/hiv_aids.html
Xie, F., Zheng, H., Huang, L., Yuan, Z., & Lu, Y. (2019). Social Capital Associated with
Quality of Life among People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nanchang,
China. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(2), 276.