I have chosen the topic of HIV/AIDS. In this written assignment, Firstly, I will start by introducing what are HIV and AIDS and the influence of them. Secondly, I will generate some figure of the world and also in Hong Kong. Then, I will use the biopsychosocial model to describe the causes of HIV. Last but not lease, I will discuss the health promotion and Motivation Strategies.
2. Definition of HIV and AIDS:
Definition of HIV
The short term of Human Immunodeficiency Virus is called HIV which is a virus and it is reported by Dr. Luc Montagnier in 1983. They cannot reproduce and grow by themselves, they have to rely on a living organism and infect the cell of them in order to replicate. Viruses usually are found and killed by the human immune system quickly, however, HIV could directly attack the human immune system which would affect our body health and cannot get rid of a virus.
Definition of AIDS
AIDS – Acquires Immune Deficiency Syndrome which is caused by inflection of HIV which would destroys the human ability to fight with the diseases and cancers. AIDS is not a single disease and it combine with opportunistic infection which would invade the live body easily when the immune system is destroyed.
People with HIV are not equal to infect AIDS. For the people who inflect HIV can also remain dormant in body for several years. During the median incubation period, for adult, it would take ten years to develop AIDS on average. And a lot of people with HIV may be unaware of their inflection status and look healthy.
3. Influence
For the people who have infected HIV are they are higher risk to get infected and malignancies because the immune system is damage which is called ‘opportunistic infects’.
The most common HIV-related opportunistic infections and diseases includes the bacterial diseases and protozoal diseases, fungal diseases, Viral diseases and HIV-associated malignancies.
There are different condition would appear in different stage of HIV infection. For the first stage patient, they have higher rate to infect tuberculosis, bacterial pneumonia, malaria, staphylococcal skin infections, herpes zoster and septicaemia and more difficult to recover. For the later stage of the patient, the immune system is being more and more weak, it is easier for them to infect PCP, cryptococcosis and toxoplasmosis which can be fatal.
4. Figure of HIV/AIDS
HIV is a global epidemic. They affect different country of the world. It could have negative effects in families, communities and the whole countries.
From the above bar chart, we can find that the number of people living with HIV increase from 8 million in1990 to 34 million in 2010. Also, in recent years, the overall number of growth of the epidemic has become more stable and the annual number of the new inflection has continuously decreased because of the increasing number of people has received antiretroviral therapy. Moreover, AID-related deaths number has also decrease.

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From the above bar chart, it is clearly to see the majority people living with HIV is mostly live in low and middle income countries, especially Sub-Saharan Africa where has two-thirds of all infected people of the whole world which carries the greatest burden of the epidemic. Also, South and South-East Asia is the second highest number of people who are infected HIV.
Figure in Hong Kong
This research is done by The Virtual AIDS Office (VAO) of Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, the first case of HIV infection was reported in 1984. From the above graphics, we would find that the number of case of people infected HIV keep on increasing in recent years. The number of cases has a mild drop in 2009 and 2010, however, the number of case in 2011 increase to a record high of 438 cases. Also, it is clearly to find the most inflection were in adult, male and Chinese. In 2011, there is 79% of the reported cases were men and 66% of reported cases is Chinese and the 83% of the reported cases aged between 20-49 which is the highest.
This pie chart show the suspected route of HIV transmission in 2011, we would find that the large proportion of people getting infected HIV is from sexual transmission which includes 39% of homosexual, 27% of heterosexual and 4% of bisexual. Also, 3.5% is infected from blood contact which includes contaminated blood, blood products and needles.
5. Causes
Biological Causes
Transmission of HIV
– Sexual contact
During the sexual contact, the semen or vaginal discharge of the inflected partner would directly in contact with the mucous membrane of the male and female’s reproductive organ. Therefore, homosexual and homosexual contact can transmit HIV, such as vaginal, oral or anal sex. And the risk of HIV transmission would increase when there is ulcer and blood during the sexual contact.
Blood contact
HIV would be transmitted by contaminated blood, blood products and needles because there is the high concentration of HIV in blood of the people inflected.
It is common to find that blood-borne transmission of HIV often occurs when the drug users who infected HIV share the needles with others. Also, we would find some cases in the health care setting, such as needlestick injuries and the HIV transfuse to the blood or blood product.
Mother to infant infection
During pregnancy, delivery or breasting feeding, there is 15-40% change that HIV can transmit the infant if the mother is infected.
Psychological Causes
There are a lot of psychological causes would increase the risk of HIV. For examples, the personal depression, suicidal thoughts, lack of sleep would lead to an increase of stress and may cause some psychiatric problems which would slow down our immune systems and we have to place more stain on it. Also, for the people who have infected HIV it would lead to high HIV viral loads. Furthermore, increase of stress will cause a lot of problems. When people getting more and more stressful, some people may choose to go to the recreational place to relax themselves, such as clubbing, bar and game center. It is easier for them to meet some bad friend and they may mislead them to take the drugs or have the sexual relation which would increase the risk of HIV transmission, such as blood contact and sexual contact.
In addition, for the people who have infected HIV, eating habit would also affect the process from HIV to AIDS which is base on the diet of the patient. It would be faster if the patient is malnourished.
Sociological Causes
– For the developing country
In the developing country, there is a lack of antiretroviral treatments and poor health care system which leads to the rate of people infected HIV remains in a high level. People in the developing countries are unawareness of HIV,
For the modern society
In the modern society, people are more open-minded. A lot of people may choose to go to the club or bar to relax after work and they may think there is nothing problem to have sex with somebody and it would lead to an increase to the number of people getting sexual contact.
-Media
The mass media always play the central role of the whole society and it would affect the mind of the citizen. In the modern society, one of the causes that people getting more and more open-minded is affect by the media. Although they are not aim to send whose messages to them, but when they watch the movies or a TV programmes that the actors can easily have the sexual relation to others or they are taking drugs which would directly affect their mind and they may want to imitate. It would increase the risk of infect HIV through blood contact and sexual contact.
6. Health promotion
– Information and education
The effective AIDS programme should promote the information and provision of education which is the key prerequisites. It should cover the all sectors of the society and educate them in a way that they can easily understand and acceptable. Also, it should be put effort continuously to achieve the outcome.
HIV and AIDS education in schools
For educating the young about HIV and AIDS, the most common place is to learn from school which is a crucial setting to educate the young. School usually pays an important role in shaping the youth’s attitudes, opinions and behavior. Therefore, teaching in school about the biological aspects of HIV and AIDS is ideal environment for teaching the social.
HIV and AIDS education in the workplace
To prevent HIV/AIDS, the key location is to educate them in the workplace. It is an important way to give them the information about what are HIV/AIDS, the causes and some prevention. Also, teaching them at the workplace can reach people who have not learn it before at school. Moreover, there are some researches found that there are nine out of ten people who are infected HIV are working. Therefore, providing education at the workplace can help the people live healthier.
For the government, they can promote some programs of the International Labour Organization (ILO) for some company to join. One of the aim of the International Labour Organization is to promote different prevent solutions at the workplace and support the workers with HIV, such as providing treatment and care.
-HIV and AIDS education through the mass media
Also the other effective way is educating the public through the mass media. Mass media always play the central role in a lot of countries in respond to HIV and AIDS. For example, UK government in order to raise the awareness of the public about the HIV and AIDS, they use the progamme called ‘blanket education’ which make good use of the mass media that can cover the whole society, and it is really successful in promoting HIV and AIDS.
-Clinical and support service
Information and education is not sufficient to inform to public. The most critical step is to provide the counselling, advice, medical treatments and support services which should also cover the whole society, especially for whole who are high risk to infect HIV, such as the drugs users, commercial sex workers. These treatments and services are both essential to the AIDS programme which can fight against the disease.
For example, for the prevention of sexual Transmission of HIV, there are some sexually transmitted diseases(STD) clinics can promote some AIDS information and education to be informed to the patients, such as inform the people who have high risk of infecting HIV should have a regular test. Also, an effective AIDS programme should train some health professional to provide effective treatments to the patients.
7. Motivation Strategies
-For the people who have not inflect HIV
To prevent sexual contact
Apart from abstinence, safe sex should be mutually monogamous sexual relationship with an uninfected person. If you do not know your partner is affected or not, you should use the condoms from the beginning whatever which types of sexual intercourse. Using condoms can reduce the risk of infecting HIV. To protect yourself and to love your sexual partner, condoms have to use properly and consistently.
To prevent blood contact
For drug user:
There are 4 things that they can do to prevent the blood contact.
Firstly, they should avoid taking drugs and as soon as possible to seek the drug treatment and rehabilitation services. Secondly, if someone cannot avoid taking drug immediately, the injecting method of taking drugs should be adopted and they should join the methadone treatment programme. Thirdly, if the drug users cannot stop to injecting drugs, they should not share syringes and needles to other and they should use once-only syringes and needles. Lastly, if the drugs users do not have their own syringe and needles, they should use bleach to clear the syringe twice and twice with water to avoid infection.
For health care workers:
In the health care setting, health care workers are easier to have some blood borne diseases such as HIV through needlestick injury. If the accident occurs, to reduce the risk of infection, first-aid management is very important. Moreover, the most effective way to reduce the risk of infection is to use universal precautions to all patients, such as wearing the protective barriers and washing hand frequently.
To prevent mother to infant infection
For the women who are considering having a baby or have been pregnant, if they are suspected to be infected with HIV, they should talk to their doctors or the AIDS counselor and should have an HIV antibody test.
Furthermore, to prevent mother-to-child transmission, there is a way to use antiretroviral drugs which can reduce the risk of the child getting infected HIV.
For the people infected HIV:
Have the Medical management of HIV infection
Although from now on, there is no such method to root up the disease, but there is some treatment have been made of AIDS. It includes two types, one is the antiretroviral drugs adoption which can control the activities of the HIV, help to restore the immunity functions and minimize the harmful effect of the virus. The other one is to have some treatment and prophylaxis to minimize the risk of opportunistic infection. Using the above methods can improve the health of the infected people and improve their quantity of life and survival in people. Therefore, for the people infected, they should have the regular medical follow-up for monitoring of the disease, so that the health care professional can follow the cases. It can detect the complications earlier and have appropriate treatment which can improve the survival change.
Control your emotion
When the patients face the illness of HIV/AIDS, they must feel fear, uncertainty, guilt, anxiety, anger and depression. However, it may something worsen the situation. Therefore, they should not deny their feeling. Ventilation of feeling may help them to resolving the emotional problem. You may share your feeling and concern to someone you trust. They may also try to gain counseling support, there will be the social worker to help you.
8. Conclusion
To conclude, from the above passages, we would found that the number of people getting infected HIV is remind in a high level. And the causes can separate into the biological, such as the transmission of HIV, psychological, such as the stress and eating habit and sociological causes which depend on the different countries and society. Moreover, there is some health promotion which should educate the public and provide some clinical treatment and services to them. Lastly, we have discussed the motivation strategies which design for the people have not inflected and the patient with HIV. And I believe that with the above methods, the problems of HIV/AIDS would be improved in foreseeable further.