Hiv/aids In The United States
The AIDS epidemic, caused by HIV , found its way to the United States between the 1970s and 1980s, but was first noticed after doctors discovered clusters of Kaposi’s sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia in homosexual men in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco in 1981.Treatment of HIV/AIDS is primarily via the use of multiple antiretroviral drugs, and education programs to help people avoid infection.
Initially, infected foreign nationals were turned back at the United States border to help prevent additional infections. The number of United States deaths from AIDS has declined sharply since the early years of the disease’s presentation domestically. In the United States in 2016, 1.1 million people aged over 13 lived with an HIV infection, of whom 14% were unaware of their infection.Gay and bisexual men, African Americans, and Latino Americans remain disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS in the United States.
The Global Distribution Of Deaths From Hiv/aids
In some countries HIV/AIDS is the cause of more than a quarter of all deaths
Globally, 1.5% of deaths were caused by HIV/AIDS in 2019.
This share is high, but masks the wide variations in the toll of HIV/AIDS across the world. In some countries, this share was much higher.In the interactive map we see the share of deaths which resulted from HIV/AIDS across the world. Across most regions the share was low: across Europe, for example, it accounted for less than 0.1% of deaths.
But across some countries focused primarily in Southern Sub-Saharan Africa the share is very high. More than 1-in-4 of deaths in South Africa were caused by HIV/AIDS in 2019. The share was also very high across Botswana Mozambique Namibia Zambia Kenya and Congo .
Death rates are high across Sub-Saharan Africa
The large health burden of HIV/AIDS across Sub-Saharan Africa is also reflected in death rates. Death rates measure the number of deaths from HIV/AIDS per 100,000 individuals in a country or region.
In the interactive map we see the distribution of death rates across the world. Most countries have a rate of less than 10 deaths per 100,000 often much lower, below 5 per 100,000. Across Europe the death rate is less than one per 100,000.
Across Sub-Saharan Africa the rates are much higher. Most countries in the South of the region had rates greater than 100 per 100,000. In South Africa and Mozambique, it was over 200 per 100,000.
In 1991 Magic Johnson Announced He Was Leaving The La Lakers After Learning He Was Hiv Positive
In the ’80s, Johnson enjoyed a successful career with the LA Lakers and was named MVP three times. However, it all came to a halt in the early ’90s when he learned he was HIV positive and thought he was going to die.
“Because of the HIV virus I have obtained, I will have to retire today from the Lakers,” he said at a press conference at the time. Sports reporters present cried at the announcement.
It was one of the first times a heterosexual, non-white celebrity had come forward with their diagnosis, breaking stereotypes around the disease.
Today, Johnson is living a healthy lifestyle and works to raise awareness around HIV and AIDS.
“You have to have these conversations because they are important,” Johnson said in an interview with PBS’ “Frontline” in 2011. “Especially coming from me: I am living with this virus. I don’t want to ever have it, so I have to tell them what can happen to them if they do the same thing I did.”
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Where Did Aids Come From
Scientists have traced the origin of HIV back to chimpanzees and simian immunodeficiency virus , an HIV-like virus that attacks the immune system of monkeys and apes.
In 1999, researchers identified a strain of chimpanzee SIV called SIVcpz, which was nearly identical to HIV. Chimps, the scientist later discovered, hunt and eat two smaller species of monkeysred-capped mangabeys and greater spot-nosed monkeysthat carry and infect the chimps with two strains of SIV. These two strains likely combined to form SIVcpz, which can spread between chimpanzees and humans.
SIVcpz likely jumped to humans when hunters in Africa ate infected chimps, or the chimps infected blood got into the cuts or wounds of hunters. Researchers believe the first transmission of SIV to HIV in humans that then led to the global pandemic occurred in 1920 in Kinshasa, the capital and largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The virus spread may have spread from Kinshasa along infrastructure routes via migrants and the sex trade.
In the 1960s, HIV spread from Africa to Haiti and the Caribbean when Haitian professionals in the colonial Democratic Republic of Congo returned home. The virus then moved from the Caribbean to New York City around 1970 and then to San Francisco later in the decade.
International travel from the United States helped the virus spread across the rest of the globe.
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Celebrities Who Lost Their Battle With Aids
These men and women left enormous legacies with their lives and deaths.
Four decades on, HIV remains a frightening reality. While many are living long and healthy lives with the disease, AIDS-related diseases felled 1.5 million people in 2013. Once thought to only affect certain people, HIV and AIDS do not discriminate when it comes to income, race, or sexuality. The stories of the following 23 individuals taught many that lesson, and many of these celebrities made it their mission to inform as many as possible about HIV’s universal threat.
Rock Hudson Hudson was Hollywood’s ultimate leading man throughout the 1950s and ’60s, romancing some of the industrys most beloved actresses on-screen, such as Doris Day, Julie Andrews, and longtime friend Elizabeth Taylor. He was briefly married in order to mask his homosexuality. Hudson died of AIDS-related complications in 1985. His death caused a mini-panic in Hollywood, as one of his last roles, on the prime-time soap Dynasty, required a long kiss with co-star Linda Evans . Hudson was the first major Hollywood star to die of the illness. In response to the loss of her beloved friend, Taylor cofounded the American Foundation for AIDS Research and later the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.
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Un Predicts Half The Teenagers In Africa Will Die Of Aids
AIDS will cause early death in as many as half of the teenagers living in the hardest hit countries of southern Africa, causing population imbalances nearly without precedent, according to a report released last week by UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.
Demographers predict that two thirds of the 15 year olds in Botswana will die of AIDS before reaching age 50. Although that is clearly the world’s worst scenario, researchers predict that in any country where 15% of adults are now infected, at least 35% of those who are currently teenagers will eventually die of AIDS.
The AIDS epidemic is already measurably eroding economic development, educational attainment, and child survivalall key measures of a nation’s healthin much of sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report.
The disease’s ultimate toll on the region, however, is likely to be far more severe than what is evident today, the report found. “The demographic effects will only be getting worse in the coming years, even if by some miracle HIV infection suddenly stopped,” said Peter Piot, director of UNAIDS. “I believe we are only at the beginning of the actual impact on societies of AIDS.”
According to the report, there are now 34.3 million people infected with HIV worldwide of whom 1.3 million are children under the age of 15. About 5.4 million people were infected last year.
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Last Year Billy Porter Revealed He Had Been Hiv Positive For 14 Years
In the essay, which was published in The Hollywood Reporter in May 2021, Porter said he was diagnosed in 2007 but kept it private because he feared the entertainment industry would reject him. However, when he started playing Pray Tell, an openly queer man with HIV, on the Emmy-winning series “Pose,” Porter decided to share his diagnosis, especially for those who already lost their lives to AIDS.
“I’m living so that I can tell the story. There’s a whole generation that was here, and I stand on their shoulders,” Porter said in the story. “I can be who I am in this space, at this time, because of the legacy that they left for me. So it’s time to put my big boy pants on and talk.”
Porter added that he is the healthiest he has been in his life.
“There’s no more stigma let’s be done with that. It’s time. I’ve been living it and being in the shame of it for long enough,” Porter said.
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The Global Hiv/aids Epidemic
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is one of the worldâs most serious public health challenges. But there is a global commitment to stopping new HIV infections and ensuring that everyone with HIV has access to HIV treatment.
According to UNAIDSExit Disclaimer:
Number of People with HIVâThere were approximately 38.4 million people across the globe with HIV in 2021. Of these, 36.7 million were adults and 1.7 million were children . In addition, 54% were women and girls.
New HIV InfectionsâAn estimated 1.5 million individuals worldwide acquired HIV in 2021, marking a 32% decline in new HIV infections since 2010. New HIV infections, or âHIV incidence,â refers to the estimated number of people who newly acquired HIV during a given period such as a year, which is different from the number of people diagnosed with HIV during a year. Of these 1.5 million new HIV infections:
- 1.3 million were among adults
- 160,000 were among children
HIV TestingâApproximately 85% of people with HIV globally knew their HIV status in 2021. The remaining 15% did not know they had HIV and still needed access to HIV testing services. HIV testing is an essential gateway to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support services.
- 85% knew their HIV status
- 75% were accessing ART
- 68% were virally suppressed
Perinatal TransmissionâIn 2021, 81% of pregnant people with HIV had access to ART to prevent transmitting HIV to their babies during pregnancy and childbirth and to protect their own health.
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Steven W. Thrasher is a professor at Northwestern University in the Medill School of Journalism and the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. He is author of the forthcoming book The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. Follow Thrasher on Twitter @thrasherxy
Steven W. Thrasher is a professor at Northwestern University in the Medill School of Journalism and the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. He is author of the forthcoming book The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. Follow Thrasher on Twitter @thrasherxy
In late October, the United States passed a grim milestone: more people in the United States had died of COVID-19 in less than two years than the approximately 700,000 who have died in the U.S. in the four decades of the AIDS pandemic.
By World AIDS Day, this gap has grown. Nearly 800,000 people are known to have died of COVID-19. If current trends continueand they dont have tohundreds of thousands of people could die of COVID in the U.S. in 2022, while perhaps 15,000 people living with HIV may die next year of any cause.
These dire numbers are worth comparing and considering, with a few caveats.
Also, we will never truly know precisely how many people have died of AIDS or from COVID.
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Advances In Hiv Treatment
HIV is not the same disease that it was 30 or even 20 years ago. In 1996, a 20-year-old newly infected with HIV had an average life expectancy of 10 years. By 2013, the same 20-year-old could expect to live well into their 70s.
So effective are current antiretroviral therapies that the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS reported a 60% drop in HIV-related deaths since the peak of the pandemic in 2004. In fact, HIV is no longer on the World Health Organizationâs list of top 10 causes of death. As of 2020, HIV/AIDS was the 19th leading cause of death worldwide.
Even so, in some low-income countries where access to healthcare is poor, HIV remains among the most common causes of death, even above stroke, tuberculosis, malaria, and infant mortality.
With a greater push toward universal drug coverage, UNAIDs and others are hoping that the number of HIV-related deaths will continue to drop even in the most hard-hit population. According to the World Bank, around 73% of the 38 million people living with HIV today have been able to access antiretroviral therapy.
HIV-related deaths have dropped by around 60% since the height of the pandemic in 2004. This is due to the effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy and increased access to treatment across the planet.
Is There Only One Type Of Hiv
No, there are actually two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2, and they have slightly different origins.
HIV-1 is closely related to the strain of SIV found in chimps. While HIV-2 is closely related to the strain of SIV found in sooty mangabeys monkeys. The crossover of HIV-2 to humans is believed to have happened in a similar way as HIV-1 .
HIV-2 is far more rare, and less infectious than HIV-1, so it infects far fewer people. It is mainly found in a few West African countries, such as Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
To complicate things further, HIV is also classified by four main groups of viral strain , each of which has different genetic make-up. HIV-1 Group M is the strain that has caused the majority of HIV infections in the world today, meaning it is the dominant strain.
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Targets To Reduce Deaths Likely To Be Missed
In 2016, UN member states endorsed the goal of cutting deaths from HIV/AIDS by 50 per cent by 2020, to less than 500,000 per year. Six months before this deadline, countries are far from achieving this target. AIDS-related deaths have reduced by only 30,000 in 12 months, down to 770,000 in 2018 this compares to 800,000 people dying in 2017 and 840,000 deaths in 2016. With these figures, mortality reduction is stagnating.
UN member states also agreed to UNAIDSs 90-90-90 targets where 90 per cent of people living with HIV know their status, 90 per cent of HIV positive people are on antiretroviral treatment, and 90 per cent of people on treatment have an undetectable viral load.
Earlier this year, MSF and the South African Department of Health demonstrated that it is possible to achieve the 90-90-90 targets and a possible reduction of HIV incidence in Eshowe, KwaZulu Natal province in South Africa, with intensive community-based services linked to primary care facilities supported by training, mentoring and monitoring.
Governments, ministries of health, international agencies, donors and partner organisations must step up efforts and focus to reduce the mortality of people living with HIV, with specific enhanced attention towards preventing, detecting and treating advanced HIV and AIDS.
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Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness Came Out As Hiv Positive In A New York Times Interview
In 2018, Van Ness jumped into the spotlight with the mega-successful Netflix series “Queer Eye.” As one of the show’s breakout stars, the grooming guru was profiled by The New York Times in 2019 and revealed he was HIV positive.
“When ‘Queer Eye’ came out, it was really difficult because I was like, ‘Do I want to talk about my status?,” he told The New York Times. “And then I was like, ‘The Trump administration has done everything they can do to have the stigmatization of the LGBT community thrive around me.’ I do feel the need to talk about this.”
Since his announcement, Van Ness has been working to dispel the belief that an HIV diagnosis is a death sentence.
“I think the thing that surprises most people is just that it’s a chronic illness and that it’s not a terminal one,” he told Insider reporter Rachel Hosie in 2020. “The treatment has come so far. It could be treatable and totally manageable, much in the way that diabetes is. You just need to make sure that you have access to healthcare. So that’s all.”
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Elisa: The First Hiv Blood Test
In CDCs immunology lab, scientists began working with AIDS specimens as early as July 1981 to understand how the immune systems of young, healthy men were so compromised by the mystery illness. In a photograph from 1983 displayed here, a female CDC research chemist conducts tests on biological fluids from AIDS patients. This work contributed to the theory that an infectious agent, not a genetic defect, was the cause of the disease. CDCs virology labs were among a network of international research centers searching for the virus believed to be the cause of AIDS.
By the next year, the U.S Food and Drug Administration licensed the first commercial blood test, ELISA, to detect HIV. Blood banks begin screening the U.S. blood supply. In a photograph on display, a different CDC lab technician is performing the ELISA test. Using a plastic plate with 96 wells, the lab technician adds the patients blood to different enzymes. Certain reactions between the blood and the enzymes indicated the presence of HIV antibodies.