HIV Prevention essays

HIV Prevention essays Some people think that HIV or AIDS is something that other people need to worry about like homosexuals, drug users, and people who sleep around. These ideas are mistaken. All young people need to take the threat of HIV seriously, except for the ones who are abstinent. HIV (scientifically known as Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is the virus that causes AIDS. By killing or damaging cells of the body's immune system, HIV progressively destroys the body's ability to fight infections and certain cancers. People diagnosed with AIDS may get life-threatening diseases called opportunistic infections, which are caused by microbes such as viruses or bacteria that usually do not make healthy people sick. This virus is passed from one person to another through blood-to-blood and sexual contact. In addition, infected pregnant women can pass HIV to their baby during pregnancy or delivery, as well as through breast-feeding. People with HIV have what is called HIV infection. Some people diagnosed with HIV, have a high chance of developing a certain form of cancer. Most of these people will develop AIDS as a result of their HIV infection. During the past decade, more than 400,000 individuals in the United States have been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS. Officials from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the number of deaths from HIV and AIDS in the U.S. has dropped by a record of 47 percent. Officials attributed the reduction to an extremely effective combination drug treatment that allows people affected with HIV to live longer and healthier lives. Unfortunately, no such decline occurred in the new number of new HIV infections in the United States. The infection rate remains at about 40,000 new cases a year. HIV can be passed on because it would be present in the sexual fluids and blood of infected people. If infected blood or sexual fluid gets into your blood, then you will become ...