HIV/AIDS : the basics, or what we need to remember…

by aidscentre

After taking a look at the Africa Centre for HIV/AIDS Management blogs I have written over the last couple of months, I think it is time to look into the basic facts and figures just to remind ourselves of what it is all about.  So here are a few “reminders” for you: 

AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, and is also called acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus.

HIV/AIDS is spread through sexual contact with an infected person, sharing needles with an infected person, through transfusions of infected blood or through an infected mother.

People infected with HIV go through 3 stages of infection: 
1) Acute infection, or acute retroviral syndrome, which can produce flu-like symptoms in the first month after infection. 
2) Clinical latency, or asymptomatic HIV infection, in which HIV reproduces at lower levels. 
3) AIDS, in which the amount of CD4 cells fall below 200 cells per cubic millimeter of blood (as opposed to the normal level of 500-1,500).

69 percent of the world’s people living with HIV/AIDS live in Sub-Saharan Africa;

Sub-Saharan Africa is comprised of: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi , Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Republic of South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

What our team at the Africa Centre does is educate on how to manage HIV/AIDS in the workplace via a university degree, but also raise awareness via community interaction, using performing arts like singing and acting. 

It is interesting to notice how stigma created by judgment and cultural differences actually allow this pandemic to persist through what is actually nothing more or less than fear.  An article about that is attached here, for your perusal : http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17290376.2013.807071#.UfeMJdKGFjR

Look, we don’t want to be gloomy on a bright sunshinny day like today, and the message is to approach this like we should approach everything in life : with a positive attitude, factual knowledge and a lot of love in our hearts. 

I can tell you that is exactly what we do here at the Africa Centre (aka Aidscentre), our performances are now even evolving from HIV/AIDS to Social Change. Our shows now also include gender based violence and substance abuse for example.  Again and always to create awareness. 

“I cannot change the world, I can only change myself, my way of thinking…”

More info on our website : http://www.aidscentre.sun.ac.za/ and FB : www.facebook.com/aidscentre.sun.ac.za

Picture : students of our PDM Summer School 2013