Global AIDS Epidemic

The concept of HIV and AIDS remained unfamiliar to most of the people around the world till the 1970s. However, this ignorance could prevail for too long as the disease took the shape of "global AIDS epidemic." The research and development made this disease a subject of global concern, as its tentacles started devouring millions of people in all the continents across the world from the 1980s. The causes, prevention and treatment of global AIDS epidemic became a hot topic amongst several researchers.

Global AIDS epidemic in a nutshell

• More than 34 million people live with HIV across the world.
• 2 million people die of AIDS HIV every year.
• Another 2.5 million people get infected with the disease annually.
• It is spreading fast in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, at the rate of 67%.
• Sub Saharan Africa is the worst affected region in the world, with 22 million people living with HIV. One out of five adults is HIV positive in this region.
• It accounts for 65% of the total world population living with HIV.
• In the western nations, the main causes of HIV are gay sexual relationships and multiple heterosexual relationships.
• In underdeveloped and developing nations, the cause may be rendered to prostitution, multiple sex partners and injection of drugs with contaminated needles.

How AIDS Epidemic became global?

Africa

The hepatitis and polio vaccines administered in the Sub Saharan Nations in the 1950s, at a mass scale turned out to be more fatal. The syringes that were used got contaminated, and were reused on a mass scale. This careless or ignorant act made AIDS epidemic global, in Africa. AIDS originated from Africa.

America

USA was the first country to officially recognize the disease by studying the blood samples of a group of 40 gays in New York, who suffered from Pneumocystis Pneumonia Carinii, a severe immunity disorder. It is believed that the first HIV case in USA was migrated from Haiti, by a gay.

Europe

The global AIDS epidemic was transmitted to UK from all those travelers and tourists, who visited USA and South America, and brought it to their nations in huge numbers in the last few decades of the twentieth century.

Asia

In Asia too, the main cause of penetration of HIV was from travelers and tourists, who infused the virus from the western nations. These tourists and travelers indulged into sexual alliances with HIV positive people, and then transferred the infection to Asia.

The Transnationalization of HIV, that intensified the impact of global AIDS epidemic, was at its peak during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. During the 70s and 80s, people were not sure about what the disease actually was. In most nations, it was diagnosed as Pneumocystis Pneumonia Carinii, a major immunity disorder. But slowly the reason behind this disease was discovered to be AIDS. As its main causes were figured out, most advanced nations started taking preventive measures by keeping a medical check on all the tourists and immigrants.

However, the same laws could not be implemented on the developing and underdeveloped nations, which led to a faster propagation and multiplication of the disease.