HIV/AIDS Skyrockets in America
New Cases Climb to 46,000 in US, Plummets in the Caribbean.
Last year, another 46,000 people contracted HIV/AIDS in the United States of America. A staggering number compared to the Caribbean’s 17,000 for the same period.
A White House report stated that an estimated 900,000 Americans (children and adults) were living with the disease, of which 300,000 were unaware of their infection. By the end of 2007, more than half a million people had died from HIV/AIDS. It is the sixth leading cause of death in America.
Latest figures from the Caribbean Epidemiology Center (CAREC) revealed that more than 330,000 people were living with HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean. After sub-Saharan Africa, it has the second highest incidence of HIV occurrence. Last year, more than 11,000 people had died from AIDS. Between 2005 and 2007 new cases dropped by an estimated 8,000. The declines, which resulted from implementation of prevention programs and medication, were in Barbados, Bahamas and Bermuda.
In comparison to the USA’s 50-state population of over 300 million, the Caribbean has 41 islands and a population of just over 6 million. HIV/AIDS in America is as close as the next passenger on the train or the bus, or the pedestrian beside you. With respect to the Caribbean, per capita, it is of grave concern.
Rebecca Haag, Executive Director of AIDS Action, believes America had failed to restrain the rampaging virus. A more effective approach would have helped reduce its spread, she said.
Last September over a hundred AIDS advocacy groups, dissatisfied with government’s approach, called for a National AIDS Strategy to help reduce infections in the USA.
In January, The CRS Report for Congress stated that government was doing its share given the exorbitant cost of HIV/AIDS programs. Since 1986, the U.S. Agency for International Development for funding HIV/AIDS in the regions had increased its funds from $11.2 million in 2000 to $56.6 million in 2004. It’s expected to hit $30 billion by 2010.
In 1981, when America diagnosed its first AIDS case, fingers pointed to the Caribbean as the portal through which it had entered the US. Reports stated that infection had spread through Trade and Tourism since more than 20 million pleasure-seeking Americans visited the islands annually, where many had unprotected sex with men and women living in this high-risk AIDS region.
In 1982, the Caribbean diagnosed its first AIDS case in Jamaica. In addition, a 2001 CAREC report titled, 20 Years of HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the Caribbean, by epidemiologist Dr. B. Camara, stated, “First reported Caribbean AIDS cases in Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago were among gay men who had had sex with North American gay men in North America or the Caribbean.” It noted that the same strain of the diagnosed HIV was circulating in North America and the Caribbean.
Globally, 33.2 million people have HIV/AIDS. It is a major killer of people between age 15 and 44. In 2007, another 420,000 children contracted the virus; by year-end 2.5 million children were living with HIV worldwide. Of the 2.1 million people who died from AIDS last year, one in every seven, were children. Every hour, some 40 children die from AIDS.
HIV/AIDS is still spreading at an alarming rate in the US and, especially
As the pandemic rages, scientists grapple to find a cure for the debilitating disease. Last year they stopped administering an AIDS vaccine test that turned out to be ineffective.
AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, is a disease that immobilizes the body’s immune system. The human immunodeficiency virus, known as HIV causes AIDS by infecting and damaging lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell in the body's immune system used to fight off invading germs.
The virus takes over the T-cell lymphocytes and multiplies. The weakened system results in AIDS and becomes susceptible to fatal infections, cancer, and deterioration of the nervous system. Although AIDS is the result of an HIV infection, not everyone with HIV has AIDS.
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