AIDS IN AFRICA

Epidemiological Study - AIDS in Africa

Epidemiological Study - AIDS in Africa

Introduction

Epidemiology can be described as the study of the frequency, distribution, and determinants of diseases. The purpose of epidemiological study is to prevent as well as control the diseases that rapidly spread and affect huge numbers of a population (Aschengrau & Seage, 2007). Epidemiology touches on ethics in two key areas: The need for competent and honest use of its information, and questions of responsibility rose by the global picture it presents of the health of humanity. In addition, epidemiology focuses more on public health issues and the need for valid population-based information, but it uses the theory and methods of biostatistics (Rothman, 2012).

Further, a typical paradigm in epidemiology focuses on the interaction of: host, agent, and environment. The host is typically a person but is sometimes another species or organism which provides a reservoir of infection that is subsequently transmitted to humans. In the presence of an epidemic, one tries to understand the characteristics of the host that provide susceptibility to the epidemic condition. Characteristics that are frequently considered are: (1) genetic characteristics; (2) biological characteristics, such as immunology, physiology, and anatomy; (3) demographic characteristics, such as age, sex, race, ethnicity, place of birth, and place of residence; (4) social and economic factors, such as socioeconomic status, education, and occupation; and (5) personal behaviors, such as diet, exercise, substance use, and use of health services (Aschengrau & Seage, 2007). The agents in this paradigm have classically been rats, lice, and insects. They may be biological, such as viruses or bacteria, as is the case in most infectious disease epidemiology. Typhus, cholera, smallpox, the Ebola virus, Legionnaires' disease, and AIDS follow this model.

AIDS is the disease that develops as a result of progressive destruction of the immune system (body's defenses), caused by a virus discovered in 1983 and named the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) (Bhargava & Booysen 2010). The word AIDS comes from the initials of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which is the inability of the immune system to fight infections and other pathological processes. AIDS is not a result of an inherited disorder, but the result of exposure to HIV infection, which facilitates the development of new opportunistic infections, tumors and other processes. The virus remains dormant and destroys a certain type of lymphocytes, cells that defend the body's immune system.

Background

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS AIDS in Castilian and English) is a sexually transmitted disease that is mostly due to a mutation or change in a virus that itself developed from African monkey, who became human blood and there has adapted and reproduced (Epstein, 2008). There are cases, subsequent studies of African people who were infected 40 or 50 years ago, when neither the disease nor the virus were described to perfection. After an initial wave of fear that they could be infected by such a simple handshake, it turned out that it could infect only on certain routes: sexual intercourse and blood contact (Bhargava & Booysen ...