AIDS: Preventing the disease | Teen Ink

AIDS: Preventing the disease

March 26, 2010
By Msteloi BRONZE, Suffern, New York
Msteloi BRONZE, Suffern, New York
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Color blindness is only the same as racism for it is ignorance"


HIV is a virus that always seems to be spreading in almost every community, even New York, and it is also the cause of AIDS, but there is a way to stop it. Ever since the 1990’s, AIDS has always increasing throughout populations. The main reason why AIDS spreads so easily is because many people don’t do know the basics about preventing the disease (and the virus), and also because most health clinics can’t seem to keep track of valuable information about their clients with the disease. South Carolina was one of the only areas since 1985 that actually has an efficient HIV/AIDS clinic and that has also dealt with AIDS as a disease that can threaten the public. Unfortunately, for the American tax-payer and—more importantly—the people at risk, we are virtually the only area in the United States since 1985 that has dealt with AIDS as a communicable disease (Kaliher).

One of the best ways to prevent HIV and maintaining your personal health is to have a routine HIV testing. Having a routine HIV testing will not only notify you when you gained the virus. It can help you maintain your health sooner so that way you have the best chances of preventing the disease. More importantly, it can stop you from infecting other people, which is best for your community.

Although, one of the problems about reducing the spread of HIV is not social, but actually political. Many programs try to send out the message of HIV to those unaware, but the main problem is the health clinics. The health clinics have poorly efficient people working for them, not only they can not ask for who their clients might of slept with, but they can not get enough information, and are also concerned about the client’s secrecy, leaving many cases unchecked. “Secrecy should never be allowed in nonmilitary, tax-supported organizations”, (Kaliher) and “health educators are still designing programs to reemphasize such basic knowledge during prime-time TV hours” (Kaliher). So mainly the health clinics can not get enough professional help, like physicians, nurses, or even detectives.

In The Global AIDS Epidemic is Exaggerated, it states that the statistics for the global AIDS population is wrong, that 10’s of 1,000’s are infected instead of what maybe a million (Hogan). He is clearly wrong; he probably had many percent errors or did not do any research on how these numbers were gained. HIV/AIDS clinics did poor jobs finding information about their clients, and research shows that clients told only 7% of the people they may have slept with (Kaliher). There for, the statistics for those infected are larger than James P. Hogan thinks.

Overall, it barely matters on the statistics for the infected population, it only matters about your own personal health. If you can maintain your own health, people will probably be influenced to do the same. Maintaining your own personal health is far more help to your community than you know it. We should all take steps like eating healthier and having “safe sex” as an adolescent to help both yourself and your community. You should also have routine check ups after sex, so that way if you do get infected, you can start eating healthier earlier and have better chances of fighting off the disease. Also, trust the health clinics, and tell them all the information you can, they are only there to help you.


The author's comments:
This is something i whipped up in my FWS classroom, i only spent about 2 or 3 days on it tops. It isn't really professional work, but i would like to know how people feel about this, and atleast try to send a message to if not alot, a few people.

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