An Awareness on HIV/AID

Hi guys, today I want to tell you all about the popular HIV virus.  I say popular because almost every average Nigerian have heard about it, but yet the HIV is being taken for granted by most of us.

            HIV is an acronym which stands for HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS. It is a 
lenti virus that causes the Acquire Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life threatening opportunistic functions and cancer to thrive.

            AIDS (Acquired Immune deficiency Syndrome or Immunodeficiency Syndrome is a disease caused by a virus called HIV. The illness alters the immune system, making people much more vulnerable to infections and diseases. A man’s susceptibility worsens as the disease progresses with time.

            The origin of HIV dates back to the late 19^th or early 20^th century in west central Africa.

            AIDS and its causes, HIV were first identified and recognized in the early 1980s. By 1985 the causative agent (HIV) was been identified, and was determined to be an advanced stage of chronic HIV infection.

            HIV is a devastating global pandemic. Statistics show that the mortality rate is about 25 million people world wide, PLWH (People Living With HIV) is over 33 million people, estimated 2.7 million people are newly infected yearly with HIV and 2 million people die of HIV related causes.

            HIV is a fragile virus which can only be transmitted under specific conditions that allows contact with infected blood, semen, vaginal secretions and breast milk.

            Transmission of HIV occurs through sexual intercourse with an infected partner, exposure to HIV infected blood or blood products, infected needles. Peri-natal transmission occurs during pregnancy, at delivery, or through breastfeeding.

Sexual transmission is the most common route. During sexual intercourse (anal, vaginal or oral) the risk of infection is greater for the partner who receives the semen because the receiver has prolonged contact with the infected fluids. This explains why it is easier to infect women than men during heterosexual intercourse.

Transmission rates are shown below;

-         Per sex act with infected person; male to female is 0.1 to 0.2%

-         By blood transfusion is 90%

-         By injection of drugs 0.7 to 0.8%

-         Breast feeding is  10 to 15%

In all, women are more vulnerable to heterosexual transmission because of their large mucosal exposure to semen, biology of the HIV virus, poverty (low socio-economic status which is as a result of:

-         High prevalence of non-consensual sex

-         Sex without condom use   

-         Unknown or high risk behavior of partners

-         Young women with much older partners