Posted: May 29th, 2019

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (Aids)

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (Aids)
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which makes the body weak and unable to fight against infections. HIV originated from the Democratic Republic of Congo in the year 1920 at a place called Kinshasa. It is believed that the virus came from a primitive species such as the chimpanzees and was later transmitted to human beings (El Howati, & Tappuni, 2018). Up until the 1980s, HIV was unidentified, and the virus did not have any noticeable signs or symptoms. In the year 1980, more than three thousand people were already infected with HIV, and it had already spread to five continents, namely; North America, Africa, Europe, South America, and Australia.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus affects the biliary tree and hepatic parenchyma leading to biliary structures and inflammation of the liver. Recent research shows that there has been an increase in the deaths of infected people due to the rise of liver diseases. Liver disease in HIV has three categories and the first group is about diseases that are associated with immunosuppression, including vanishing bile duct syndrome and AIDS (Alhareth Al Juboori, & Tahan, 2018). The second group is drug-induced hepatotoxicity, and the last group involves co-infection of hepatitis B and C viruses incorporating the progression of fibrosis and accelerated liver damage. There are risk factors that are associated with HIV, such as the high risk of nodular regenerative hyperplasia and non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases. This because patients are predisposed to portal vein thrombosis development, which leads to end-stage diseases. And most people who are infected with HIV tend to have nodular regenerative hyperplasia, which is a common histologic diagnosis.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus is transmitted in various ways, which include an infected mother to baby during childbirth or breastfeeding. By use of a contaminated needle and syringe and through unprotected sex with an infected person. Body fluids such as; blood, breast milk, vaginal fluids, semen and rectal fluids from a person who is infected can also transmit the disease (Hargreaves, & Baral, 2018). The fluids must be in touch with damaged tissue or be injected into a person’s bloodstream by use of a syringe or a needle, and lastly, the mucous membrane found in the mouth, vagina, penis and rectum.
Community outbreak of HIV/AIDS can play a significant impact in schools, hospitals, local government and businesses. For instance, HIV would seriously affect schools because there would be a decrease in the education demand since the population of the students would be low due to the high death rates. An outbreak of HIV in the hospitals would lead to a shortage of treatment especially, the antiretroviral drugs that are used to cure patients that are infected with HIV/AIDS and also many people would lose their lives. In the business sector, HIV would significantly impact the workers who work in the industries (Britton, & Larson, 2018). It would lead to low productivity in firms and companies because if the virus infects the majority of the workers, then most of the work in the industries will not be attended to hence leading to low productivity.
The HIV/AIDS outbreak would also impact the local government by affecting the economic growth of the country in reducing the availability of the human labor hence lowering the productivity of the products that are to be imported, hence lowering the economic growth (El Howati, & Tappuni, 2018). If an HIV outbreak occurred in my Community, a reporting protocol would be useful because it would provide patient counselling and referral for appropriate medical management. Also, it would help the patient to know what kind of drugs they should take. Also, reporting HIV infected people helps other people recognize people who are infected or at risk of HIV infection and how to prevent it from spreading further.
Community-level education and community engagement strategy are the main strategies used to prevent an HIV outbreak in a community (Alhareth Al Juboori, & Tahan, 2018). Community-level education helps people understand what HIV and AIDS are, how they are transmitted and ways to prevent new infections from spreading through primary knowledge such as having protected sex, use of clean, sharp objects such as needles, and for the expectant women, they should be educated on the medicine to take, to prevent the newborn from being infected.
Community engagement strategy helps people to be supportive of one another regardless of whether you have the virus. The Community should engage in activities that will help the infected people to gain self-identity and social acceptance. Also, the Community will benefit from knowing what to do if they get affected and how to abstain from the virus. With such strategies, there will be fewer outbreaks of HIV and AIDS, and the population will increase. Education is the vital thing in reducing the number of infected people hence increasing the number of people in a given community or country (Britton, & Larson, 2018).

Reference
El Howati, A., & Tappuni, A. (2018). Systematic review of the changing pattern of the oral
manifestations of HIV. Journal of investigative and clinical dentistry, 9(4), e12351.
Naseer, M., Dailey, F. E., Alhareth Al Juboori, S. S., & Tahan, V. (2018). Epidemiology,
determinants, and management of AIDS cholangiopathy: A review. World journal of
gastroenterology, 24(7), 767.
Rao, A., Schwartz, S., Sabin, K., Wheeler, T., Zhao, J., Hargreaves, J., & Baral, S. (2018). HIV-
related data among key populations to inform evidence-based responses: protocol of a
systematic review. Systematic reviews, 7(1), 220.
Rowell-Cunsolo, T. L., Liu, J., Shen, Y., Britton, A., & Larson, E. (2018). The impact of HIV
diagnosis on length of hospital stay in New York City, NY, USA. AIDS care, 30(5), 591-
595.