The situation of Southeast Asia and HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS was first appeared in mid 1980s and the causative agent as identified in 1983. Globally, only a small number of HIV infections are estimated to have occurred during the late 1970 and early 1980s. Now HIV/AIDS is global pandemic major public health problem and great threat for socio-economic development. HIV/AIDS epidemic shows worst epidemic ever is the worlds found in different populations, levels, regions etc i.e. HIV/AIDS is really a multiple epidemics.
Global summary of the AIDS epidemics as of December 2006, by UNAIDS,
Number of people living with HIV in 2006.
Total 39 .5 million (34.1-47.1 million)
Adults 37.2 million (32.1-44.6 million)
Women 17.7 million (15.1-20.9 million)
Children under 15 years 2.3 million (1.7-3.5 million)
People newly infected with HIV in 2006
Total 4.3 million (3.6-6.6 million)
Adults 37.2 million (3.2-5.7 million)
Children under 15 years 530000 (410000-66000)
HIV Prevalence increased remarkably in sub-Saharan Africa, Representing about 60% of the world?s total HIV infections.
HIV has been well established in south and south-East Asia.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic is spreading rapidly in all south Asian countries.
According to UNAIDS repost 2006.
South and South-East Asia
Adult and children living with HIV 7.8 million
Adults and children nearly infected with HIV 860000
Adults prevalence (%) 0.6%
Adults and children deaths due to AIDS 590000
East Asia
Adult and children living with HIV 750000
Adults and children nearly infected with HIV 100000
Adults prevalence (%) 0.1%
Adults and children deaths due to AIDS 43000
Global deaths due to AIDS according to UNAIDS 2006
Total 2-9 million
Adults 2.6 millions
Children 0.38 millions.
Detection of HIV Cases in South Asia Association of regional Co-operation (SAARC) Region by year.
India 1986
Pakistan 1987
Sri Lanka 1987
Nepal 1988
Maldives 1992
Bhutan 1993
Bangladesh 1994
Source: STC, Bhaktapur, Kathmandu/ FHI
Made of transmission
HIV is found in body fluids such as blood, semen vaginal fluids and breast milk. It is passed from one person to another only in very specific ways. These all
Unprotected Sex:
A person can get infected with HIV through unprotected sexual inter coarse means both vaginal and with an infected person. Virus can be present either in an infected person?s blood. Semen or vaginal secretions and enters the body of the sexual partner thought the thin skin of their sex organs mouth or anus, or through sores or cuts or their mouth, hands or body.
Sharing of needles:
If a person uses the needle or syringe used by an HIV infected person. For injecting drugs or medicines, for drawing blood or for piercing, he/she can get infected. Contaminated instruments used for piercing the skin such as, tattooing and acupuncture also carry a risk of infection.
Infected blood:
If blood from a person infected by HIV gets into the blood stream of another person, it will also infect the other person. Infection may occur during blood transfusions offer an accident during surgery, after child birth or other medical treatments.
Unsterile equipments: surgical instruments like syringes and scalpels used on an HIV infected person can transmit the infection if used again without proper sterilization.
Mother to child (MTCT):
It an HIV positive women becomes pregnant, the HIV Virus can pass from her blood through the placenta into the growing baby during pregnancy or during birth. Breast milk can also transmit HIV.
Impacts of HIV/AIDS
The impact of HIV/AIDS would increase poverty and vulnerability. Consequence of increased vulnerability would be more HIV infections and a higher impact. Besides the negative impact on socio-economic development and the loss of productive life, the burden
Impacts of HIV on TB epidemiology and TB control
HIV increases the risk of infections with TB Bacilli and when a person is infected with TB bacilli, HIV increases the progression of TB infection to disease. Evidence suggest that when a person is infected with TB Bacilli only, his life time risk of developing TB disease is infected with 5-10% but when he/she is infection with both TB bacilli and HIV virus, his life time risk of developing TB disease would be 50-60%. As result there will be increased number of TB patients who will again transmit the disease to the community and health services will have to struggle to cope with the large and rising number TB patients. This will lead to inadequate supervision of anti-TB chemotherapy, low cure rates, high mortality rates during treatment, high default rates because of adverse drug reactions and also due to lack of supervision, high rates of TB recurrence and increased emergence of drug resistible.
Impact on Health care services:
With the increase number of AIDS patients health care cost will also increase and it will put added pressure to the already fragile health care services. Today?s HIV infected people will progress. AIDS and will occupy the beds of already overburdened hospitals. HIV associated TB patients will also put additional burden on hospital services. The growing number of AIDS orphans and widows may create serious strain on.
Impact on households/ families:
Toll of HIV/AIDS on households, can be very sever:
- Presence of HIV/AIDS will dissolve the family, as parents die children are sent to relatives for case and upbringing.
- Loss of family income: affected person can not earn. Others person also has to divert more time and effort away from income generating activities.
- Care related expenses and expense after death (funeral expense) push affected house deeper into poverty.
- Household suffer from food security.
- Children (especially the girls) are removal from schools because of inability to bear the expenses of education and also to take care of the affected parents.
Social safety net programmers
Social & Economic Impacts:
HIV/AIDS is not just a health problems it has grave social and economic consequences as well.
1) AIDS is primarily a sexually transmitted disease; it mainly strikes adolescents, young adults and those in early middle age, killing every people on who society relies for production and reproduction.
2) AIDS kills the people in prime stage of life, people who labour in the field and factories, who run important services like schools, hospitals, corporations and governments.
3) Growing absenteeism and replacements (usually by unskilled ones). due to death from AIDS among the work force strike at the root of industrial productivity and profitability.
4) Actually HIV/AIDS is an important issue for work place and challenge for development.
Challenges to address the epidemic:
Many people do not know how HIV/AIDS is transmitted form HIV infected people to the heather one. We can not distinguish between HIV Carries and healthy people easily. To know the HIV status of we must have gone through serological test, ELISA (Enzyme Linked Immune Sorbent Assay), Western blotting test etc.
Due to not rigid policy of government and their lack of skillful management skill infected people does not have easy access to the preventive short period antiretroviral therapy: though donor have invested a lot in that sector to combat the HIV/AIDS against poverty skill health care provider hesitate to treat the HIV/AIDS patient, they simply misbehave to wads PLWAS. There are a lot of such case use have been with our naked eyes. Our society is not at the stage of adopting those PLWAS to survive in healthily environment, due to lock of knowledge and awareness in community people there is discrimination and hurdle of stigma which is compelling society to towards worsen condition.
We do not have sufficient infrastructure to handle the existing PLWHA, as well as training, quality & monitoring system, facilities etc.
A pre-existing and newly infected HIV infected person exacerbates the problem and Vice Versa; simply it is collateral effects of the epidemic.
in future how much resources we need we don?t know to fight against the global pandemic HIV/AIDS.
What do we do?
v Empower people to communicate and negotiate openly about sexual needs, desires and perceived risks.
v Empower girls/women and boys/men by increasing sexual reproductive health.
v Improve sexual and reproductive health services for all, their coverage, accessibility and gender sensitivity.
v Empower women to participate in commutating and national decision making about HIV/AIDS issues.
v Create more friendly sexual and reproductive health services. Women and men should be encouraged to access health services and monitor their own risk factors and behaviors.
v Incorporate a gender perspective and sexual reproductive health services into crisis response plans, in order to ensure that is crisis does not worsen the spread of HIV/AIDS.
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