Kvescio Week 4 Assignment

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Weekly Assignments

Class Journals

Purpose

The purpose of these readings was to look into the Myths behind the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and understand how crucial it is to know the facts and continue to fight the virus.

Myth 8

Intro: Myth is that officials in poorer countries should be focusing more on the health concerns of all individuals rather than expensive HIV treatment for some of the population.

  • Several considerations must be addressed when evaluating the importance of AIDS treatment in developing countries:
  1. the distribution of AIDS among different population groups and its impact on life expectancy;
  2. the consequences of AIDS on food production and nutrition;
  3. the relationship between AIDS and other infectious diseases;
  4. the AIDS orphan crisis; and
  5. the impact of HIV/AIDS on poor countries' health care systems.
  • AIDS treatment must not replace efforts against other forms of illness, but rather, should be added to existing public health agendas.
  • Most people who die from AIDS are young adults who have gotten an education and can be productive members of society, but die before they are able to do so.
    • Dying and being sick in years that should be the most vigorous and productive phase of their lives, inflict severe economic damage on affected countries.
  • AIDS is greatly reducing the average life expectancy in affected countries.
  • According to UN, seven million farm workers have died of AIDS-related causes since the 80's.
    • Has greatly affected agriculture in developing countries.
    • Extremely detrimental to the economy and health of all.
    • Many in danger of starvation.
  • Deployment of AIDS treatment will strengthen efforts to control other illnesses, such as tuberculosis.
    • "Up to 70 percent of patients with pulmonary TB are HIV-positive, and up to half of people living with HIV develop TB" (World Health Organization).
    • Illnesses go hand-in-hand due to weakened immune system.
  • Many people who die from AIDS are young parents.
    • Their death greatly effects the children.
    • Can lead to hunger, domestic conflict, loss of educational opportunities, and more.
    • Losing an income earner to AIDS is detrimental to any household.
  • The Orphan Crisis: many of these children are losing their parents and being orphans. Suffer from psychological issues, deprivation, social exclusion, and health risks.
  • The battle against HIV/AIDS is exhausting the health care systems of developing countries who have not yet attempted to introduce large-scale treatment programs using ARVs.
  • The humanitarian benefits of this program would be vast and improve the health of the poor, while increasing global productivity and generating significant gains for the world economy.

Myth 9

Intro: Myth is that people in wealthier countries have nothing to gain by fighting AIDS in the developing world.

  • Exploding HIV/AIDS epidemics in poorer countries pose a threat to wealthier countries.
    • Virus will continue to spread to Western civilization as more people have access to travel.
  • As the number of tuberculosis infections increase, the danger of contracting TB rises for all members of the community.
    • To protect ourselves against TB, best policy is to ensure that the intertwined TB and HIV epidemics are controlled on the global level.
  • Effective global fight against AIDS will help wealthier countries economically.
    • Disease ravages workforces.
    • In some countries in Africa, AIDS has cut overall worker productivity in half.
  • Calculations that if increased health investments of $66 billion per year above previous spending, then by 2015-2020 it would have generated at least $360 billion annually in direct and indirect gains for world economy.
  • Some AIDS advocates have emphasized the pandemic's potential security implications.
  • By diverting scarce public resources; creating orphans; incapacitating adults; and decimating the recruitment pool for militaries, government administrations, the health professions, and other vital sectors, AIDS attacks the structure of society.
  • In African countries, they have lost a lot of military personal and police force due to the AIDS epidemic.
  • A heavy disease burden among a country's population is strongly correlated with political instability.
  • Fighting HIV/AIDS in developing countries would be beneficial to the US, however, powerful countries should commit themselves to the global AIDS effort based morality.
    • Virus has been detrimental to the world, however, wealthier countries got more resources, better treatment, and availability to treatment.
    • Wealthy countries are refusing to contribute their share.
  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25 states: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care..." Therefore, lack of access to effective AIDS prevention and treatment violates the basic rights of millions of people in the developing world.

Refined Question

  • Cohort of non-drug using patient of a large enough sample size, study the genetic variation of the different progressors groups as well as the immune response over a period of time (CD4 T cells decline).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is still a huge issue in some parts of the world. Many people are skeptical about putting more funding into treatment in these areas that already deal with many other health issues. They believe more funding should go to maturity, basic public health; issues that affect everyone; rather than only focusing on a group of people with one disease. The truth of the matter is that the HIV/AIDS crisis affects all aspects of health, and if more funding was put into the treatment in these areas, then there would be a lot less public health issues in general. Others believe that wealthy countries should not be focusing on helping these poorer countries with their AIDS problem. However, helping these countries would make the global economy stronger and help those in wealthy and poorer countries. Not to mention, it is evident that the rich are more accessible to the medication for HIV. It is a lot more difficult and expensive to get treatment in less developed countries. This issue brings up a lot of ethics concerns. It is a moral duty for wealthier countries who have easy access to treatment, to be providing it for those who cannot afford it.

Acknowledgments

  • I worked with Lizzy Urbina and Sahil during class to discuss a revised research question. We came up with a question together.
  • I texted Lizzy Urbina and asked her a question regarding the assignment.
  • Except for what is noted above, this individual journal entry was completed by me and not copied from another source.

Kvescio (talk) 15:15, 12 February 2020 (PST)

References

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