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Lucas Gonzalez
Lucas Gonzalez

HIV AIDS: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short... EXCLUSIVE



In 2008 it was believed that HIV/AIDS was without doubt the worst epidemic to hit humankind since the Black Death. The first case was identified in 1981; by 2004 it was estimated that about 40 million people were living with the disease, and about 20 million had died. Yet the outlook today is a little brighter. Although HIV/ AIDS continues to be a pressing public health issue the epidemic has stabilised globally, and it has become evident it is not, nor will it be, a global issue. The worst affected regions are southern and eastern Africa. Elsewhere, HIV is found in specific, usually, marginalised populations, for example intravenous drug users in Russia.Although there still remains no cure for HIV, there have been unprecedented breakthroughs in understanding the disease and developing drugs. Access to treatment over the last ten years has turned AIDS into a chronic disease, although it is still a challenge to make antiviral treatment available to all that require it. We also have new evidence that treatment greatly reduces infectivity, and this has led to the movement of 'Treatment as Prevention'. In this Very Short Introduction Alan Whiteside provides an introduction to AIDS, tackling the science, the international and local politics, the fascinating demographics, and the devastating consequences of the disease. He looks at the problems a developing international 'AIDS fatigue' poses to funding for sufferers, but also shows how domestic resources are increasingly being mobilised, despite the stabilisation of international funding. Finally Whiteside considers how the need to understand and change our behaviour has caused us to reassess what it means to be human and how we should operate in the globalizing world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.




HIV AIDS: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short...



Condoms have been a basic but critical tool in prevention. In many communities of men who have sex with men, and sex workers, awareness-raising meant that the use of condoms became the norm. However, this messaging is not as strongly pushed now, and a new generation is growing up without being fully aware of the benefits of using condoms, and many countries have shortages. The introduction of harm-reduction programmes (including needle and syringe programmes and opioid substitution therapy) in a range of cities in the mid to late 1980s prevented and reversed explosive HIV epidemics associated with drug injecting, but such effective public health programmes face legal barriers and a lack of political will in many countries, resulting in very low coverage in most countries. Voluntary medical male circumcision, which provides 60% life-long protection from HIV has been rolled out in high burden countries in East and southern Africa benefitting more than 20 million adolescent boys and men.


Viruses can only live for a very short time outside other living cells. For example, viruses in infected body fluids left on surfaces like a doorknob or toilet seat can live there for a short time. They'll die quickly unless a live host comes along.


As advertised, Culler's book is very short -- roughly 35,000 words -- and even includes a few cartoons. And in a field not known for its easy-going, graceful style, Culler's prose is deft, lucid and often witty -- a kind of Fred Astaire dance over the martial music of some literary criticism. It takes on topics such as "What is literature and does it matter?"; the relation between literary and cultural studies; meaning in literature; performative language; identity and identification; the analysis of narrative; and the study of poetry.


Most host cells will be killed by infection or will eventually die of old age, but a very small number of cells appear to live for a very long time in the body. Every so often, the viral DNA can get turned on, and the cell starts to produce new virus. This is why medication adherence is critical. Stopping medication, even for a short time, might result in new cells being infected with HIV.


Because antibody levels in saliva are lower than they are in blood, this test can fall short in its ability to detect early-stage (acute) infection. According to the CDC, OraQuick tests have a 7 percent false negative rate, meaning that roughly one out of every 12 tests will deliver an incorrect all-clear sign.


The exception is the pertussis vaccine, where the focus of vaccine programmes is the prevention of disease in infancy; this is achieved both by direct vaccination of infants as well as by the vaccination of other age groups, including adolescents and pregnant women in some programmes, to reduce transmission to infants and provide protection by antibody transfer across the placenta. Notably, in high-income settings, many countries (starting in the 1990s) have switched to using the acellular pertussis vaccine, which is less reactogenic than (and therefore was thought to be preferable to) the older whole-cell pertussis vaccine that is still used in most low-income countries. It is now apparent that acellular pertussis vaccine induces a shorter duration of protection against clinical pertussis and may be less effective against bacterial transmission than is the whole-cell pertussis vaccine47. Many high-income countries have observed a rise in pertussis cases since the introduction of the acellular vaccine, a phenomenon that is not observed in low-income nations using the whole-cell vaccine48. 041b061a72


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