AIDS

            AIDS, by definition is "destruction of the immune system resulting from infection with HIV," but for an infected people, it is much more than that. They not only deal with the shock of finding out they have AIDS, but also with the medical aspects of the disease, and the social issues that affect AIDS patients. .
             When a person receives the news that they are infected with HIV, they have to be thinking, "How did I get it?" HIV is only spread through direct exposure to infected blood. This includes sexual contact, sharing of needles or syringes used for intravenous drugs, blood transfusions, or from an infected mother to her baby, either by childbirth or breast-feeding. Transmission through blood transfusions is very rare today, because of the extensive testing of the nation's blood supply. However, before testing was required, many people, especially hemophiliacs, received HIV through tainted blood. Also, only about thirty percent of the children born to HIV-positive mothers actually become infected themselves.
             The AIDS epidemic is expanding at a rapid rate. At first, HIV infection in the United States was concentrated in the homosexual community and in individuals who received blood products, such as those with hemophilia. Later, infection became incorporated among intravenous drug users and spread to all groups of society, especially through high-risk behaviors. Even though today fifty percent of transmissions are through homosexual contact and another twenty-five percent is through IV drug abuse, the heterosexual spread of AIDS is rising rapidly and accounts for ten percent of transmissions. Today, there are more than 400,000 cases of AIDS in the United States. Although males make up almost ninety percent of these cases, women and children are the fastest growing group of people with AIDS. In 1992, AIDS became the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. Globally, the epidemic is even worse.