HIV/AIDS

Last Wednesday I had a three hour lecture and seminar course on HIV/AIDS. The seminar was incredible; it was very informative as it took my mind to a sociological and anthropological level of bliss. The course commenced with the origins of the epidemic proceeding to information concerning the scope of the epidemic worldwide and then covered the epidemic specifically in reference to Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and then Senegal.
A co-founder of the African Consultants International (ACI) - which is where my school program stems from and is the Dakar, Senegal branch of the ACI program - was a frontier in the efforts in battling the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She approached the epidemic with a sociological and anthropological framework transitioning the issue from a statistical, medical epidemic to a social epidemic. Thus, with her innovative efforts HIV/AIDS was transformed into being viewed as an epidemic effecting each socio-economic aspect of life (health, economy, family interactions, social networks, food production, etc.) and the methods of prevention, education, and solution finding have been highly influenced, involving positive, increased efforts against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

I simply wanted to share a few facts, numbers, and information that was either shocking, mind-boggling, interesting, or a piece of information I was ignorant of before the seminar.

• HIV/AIDS began 27 years ago
• HIV/AIDS has caused over 25 million deaths
• the total number of people living with HIV is estimated at 33.4 million people globally
• it is estimated that there are nearly 7,500 new infections each day
• Africa holds 10% of the global population and is home to approximately 70% of all people living with HIV/AIDS
• more than three in four (76%) of AIDS deaths in the world in 2007 occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa, illustrating the unmet need for antiretroviral treatment in that part of the world despite significant advances
• Southern Africa alone accounts for 35% of people with HIV globally and one third (32%) of all new HIV infections and AIDS deaths in the world
• almost 61% of adults living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, in 2007 were women.
• infection rates in young African women are far higher than in young men - rates among teenage girls are three to five times higher than in teenage boys (the biological make-up of the lining of the uterus is more susceptible to HIV/AIDS in younger females than older females as the uterus is in developmentally different stages)
• microbicides! - for the first time new HIV prevention research in 2009 reported efficacy in a microbicide controlled and initiated by women
• there is a concentrated epidemic with rates below 3% in the general populations but higher rates concentrated in certain groups with high risk behavior and in certain areas
• there are approximately 80,000 people living with HIV in Senegal - 9 women for every 5 men have HIV
  
• over 30,000 people have died of AIDS
• there are approximately 10,000 orphans as a result of HIV/AIDS

Well, there is a little bit of information - I hope you aren't feeling emotionally strained. I just think it is important for us to be aware of the items in this world that are affecting other human beings.