AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, a disease that makes it difficult for the body to fight off infectious diseases. The human immunodeficiency virus known as HIV causes AIDS by infecting and damaging part of the body's defences against infection, namely the white blood cells known as CD4 helper lymphocytes.
When a person's immune system is overwhelmed by AIDS, the symptoms can include extreme weakness or fatigue, rapid weight loss, frequent fevers that last for several weeks with no explanation, heavy sweating at night, swollen lymph glands, minor infections that cause skin rashes and mouth, genital, and anal sores, white spots in the mouth or throat, chronic diarrhoea, a cough that won't go away, short-term memory loss. Females may also experience severe vaginal yeast infections that do not respond to usual treatment, as well as pelvic inflammatory disease.
The only known way for the HIV virus to be transmitted from one person to another is when it is spread from the inside of an infected person's body to the inside of another person's body. This can happen when infected fluids - such as semen, vaginal fluids, or blood - are passed from one person to another.
How does someone become infected? HIV can be spread through sexual intercourse if one of the partners has the virus. The virus can be spread through an infected person's blood, semen, and secretions from the cervix (part of a female's uterus) or vagina. HIV can travel to another person through cuts and sores on the penis, rectum (the last part of the intestine that connects to the anus), vagina, or skin around the genitals and probably the mouth and other mucous membranes. These cuts or sores are often so small that a person isn't even aware of them. HIV can be spread sexually from a man to a woman, a woman to a man, a man to a man, and a woman to a woman. AIDS in the past decade has shed its image as a disease only spread among homosexual and is now considered as a global threat to world health.
One reason AIDS spread is because people think they need to have sexual intercourse to become infected. That's wrong. A person can get some AIDS, like herpes or genital warts, through skin-to-skin contact with an infected area or sore. Another myth about HIV is that you can't get them if you have oral or anal sex. That is a serious misconception because the virus that causes HIV can enter the body through tiny cuts or tears in the mouth and anus, as well as the genitals.
People who inject themselves with illegal drugs like steroids and heroine also risk infecting themselves with HIV. This is due to the fact that many people who take those drugs, take it through intravenous methods. The needles used by them are usually shared with a number of people and is not properly sanitized. This increases the chances of getting infected with the disease. For if a person with HIV shares a needle, he or she also risks getting the virus, which lives in the tiny amounts of blood attached to the needle. Sharing needles can also pass other serious infections to another person.
Also, a newborn baby is at risk of getting the HIV virus from his or her mother if she is infected. This can happen before the baby is born, during birth, or through breastfeeding. Pregnant females should be tested for HIV because women who receive treatment for HIV are much less likely to spread the virus to their babies. Babies born to mothers infected with HIV are also given special medicines to try to prevent HIV infection.
Another reason AIDS is spread so easily is because you can't tell whether someone has an infection. In fact, some people with AIDS don't even know that they have them. These people are in danger of passing an infection on to their sex partners or innocent parties without even realizing it.
An example would be doctors who treat HIV patients that were involved in accidents. Sometimes the patients being treated may not realise he or she has the virus, thus not informing the doctor before treatment. The bodily fluids of the patient when in contact with an open wound would put the doctor at risk of catching the disease.
There are certain people that have a higher chance of getting the virus. These people are usually the ones that get involved in sexual activity at a young age; the younger a person starts having sex, the greater his or her changes of becoming infected with HIV. As the younger one starts having sex, the higher the number of sex partners in one’s lifetime. This further exposes that person’s chances of contracting the disease. People who have sexual contact - not just intercourse, but any form of intimate activity - with many different partners are more at risk than people who practice astantine from sex.
Asking people if they have HIV is not a reliable way of finding out whether they are infected. People may not answer truthfully. They may be embarrassed to tell you or may not want you to know. Or they may not even know they have the virus because it can take many years for symptoms to develop. An infected person will look healthy for many years and can still spread the virus. The most certain way of preventing HIV infection is by not having sex and doing drugs.
Singapore’s government can provide anonymous HIV testing at no cost at public health centres throughout the country. By ensuing absolute anonymity, this test not only helps to encourages and enables people to receive a check for AIDS but will also help to reduce the AIDS cases in the long run for by knowing beforehand who has HIV, the patients are able to seek treatment earlier.
The government can also launch more aggressive and spirited campaigns. Examples are posters of AIDS statistics around the nation. to make people aware of AIDS issues so as to reduce the number of people having pre-martial sex thus contracting HIV in the process.
A compulsory law should also be made whereby couples must get tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases before marriage can commence. The results of the test must then be disclosed to the spouse-to-be. This ensures that when the married couple engages in unprotected sexual intercourse, HIV would be spread unknowingly.