Notes.: South African Adults Essay

Submitted By patbuzzo
Words: 915
Pages: 4

South Africa is the number one country in the world with the most people infected with HIV and AIDS. In 2011, an estimated 5.6 million people were infected with this disease. The peak of this pandemic happen to be in the year 2005, which killed over 700 South Africans a day. Out of all of the South African adults from the ages of 15 to 49 years of age, it’s estimated that 17% are HIV positive. With many adults dying from this disease, many children are left without their parents to grow up with. A horrendous number or over 1 million children that are of under the age of 18 have lost their mothers due to AIDS/HIV. According to statistics, Black South Africans seem to be getting hit with the disease the hardest with 13% of all of their ages are HIV positive. Other races, such as whites and Indians are only about 3% HIV positive. Researchers have found out that the reasoning for Black South Africans to be getting hit the hardest has little to nothing to do with poverty, which was most peoples guess. The actual reasoning is that Black South African men usually have more sexual partners and have sex more often than any other South African men. In Black communities in South Africa there are more common sexual violence’s and rapes. An interesting fact is that Black South Africans believed that the cure for HIV/AIDS is to have sex with a virgin. A big contributor to the spreading of AIDS is that Black South Africans believe that having “flesh and flesh” sex is good for their health. South Africa is the top country in the world that is infected with this terrible disease and is in need of help, supporters are able to donate to the Red Ribbon Campaign, and help the fight against AIDS. There is not a lot of information on how AIDS/HIV presented itself in the 1950’s in South Africa. The little information found, shows that a British researcher, Edward Hooper, claimed that AIDS had been presented as a product of “cross-contamination” from a oral polio vaccine that was given out in Africa in the late 1950’s. This particular vaccine was originated from chimpanzee kidney cells that were contaminated. Other information about how this disease was spread is that it was passed to humans from animals. Researchers think that the HIV could have been passed to humans from chimpanzees, from the cause of human killings of chimps and eating it for food. Researcher also think that they have found how HIV became a pandemic problem by possibly knowing who “patient zero” (the first person diagnosed with AIDS) was. “Patient Zero” was thought to be a Canadian flight attendant named Gaetan Dugas, who showed early symptoms of having AIDS and also shared multiple sex partners who happened to be flight attendants also, that he most likely spread his disease to. Cases of AIDS were traced to several different American cities where those infected flight attendants happened to live. This wild event played a key role for the reasoning of air travel in spreading the disease.

Across Africa, HIV/AIDS manifests itself as both a problem that must be dealt with immediately; in need of an urgent response, and a long-term strategic conflict, that requires strategic planning. It is a crisis because the speed with which the virus has spread has proved to be quite overwhelming. In some African countries, infection rates have increased from 4 - 20% or more in adult populations in less than a decade. In Cameroon, for example, the level of infections has risen 10 times in just the last six years. This has also happened in several other countries in