Introduction: Why HIV/AIDS is a global health issue?
The current day world has a lot of health issues which are severe in their own sense of peculiarity in terms of number of patients’ worldwide, ease of diagnosis, lethalness on the patients, contagious capabilities, and medical span of control, cure, and awareness levels. The range of extremity in above stated aspects for a disease decide the true nature of its presence as a global health issue. So, in terms of all above aspects HIV/AIDS stands on the topmost cadre and reason for this position comes from shocking facts related to it. HIV/AIDS owes to almost 1.3 millions million deaths every year with a forthcoming 2.3 million infections and almost half of the total AIDS patients are unaware of their infection (Fowler, 2014). Thus, this awareness paves the way for unregulated spread of this highly contagious disease through a number f carriers like infected blood, sexual relations, etc. We can see now why the HIV stands crucial as a global health issue.
Literature summary: AIDS as a global health issue
There are several important factors which make AIDS as a critical issue in global health. The diagnosis and its simultaneous acknowledgment for AIDS are quite different from other disease. In spite of suffering over symptoms, many patients do not strive for a diagnosis because they are afraid of a possible throw of discrimination, judgment and prejudice casted from them by the society (Fowler, 2014). This causes concealment of actual HIV status of many patients and they keep functioning as a carrier for the disease.
Again in spite of rapidly growing technology in even the developing countries like India and China, the awareness levels for AIDS are almost negligible when compared to other diseases (Quarashi, 2012). Finally, global funds allocation to research and development over AIDS has been quite minimal due to no foreseen success as cure and absence of sound international economies (Garrett, 2013).
Literature review: Vulnerability of global population to AIDS
There are few sections of the modern day society like homosexuals (gays and lesbians) and transgender who are not acceptable by the general public to be a routine part of society. This banishment causes a hindered access to mass awareness program, general communications and access to general healthcare facilities for these segments and their riskier sexual habits make them more vulnerable to HIV (Fowler, 2014). This insecurity of this significant part of the society prevents them from coming forward for testing and thus remains as an undisclosed source for AIDS transmission. Further, varying economies in most of poorer nations and some impoverished societies in developing nations causes the choice of sexual trade and prostitution as livelihood sources for many people who are gullible to be infected from HIV (Garrett, 2013).
Factors which contribute to make HIV/ AIDS persist as global health issue
There are some significant factors associated with AIDS that make it a global health issue. Firstly, social and cultural acceptability of the disease is a very crucial issue as patients are often judged with prejudice and discrimination. Secondly, there has been significant aversion of homosexuality as a social phenomenon which prevents such patients to come forward. Thirdly, there has been very little technological advancement and R&D done in field of diagnosis and cure for AIDS. Fourthly, poverty and low lying economies of the world are marked with least accessible healthcare services and more inclination towards sex trade and prostituting which causes faster spread of the disease (Fowler, 2014). Finally, with advent of growing technology there has not been a subsequent rise in awareness programs and communication to spread awareness about AIDS in terms of possible prevention, symptoms and cure (Fowler, 2014).
Goals of health initiatives to address HIV/AIDS
There are many global initiatives determined to address the global issues which lead to AIDS and their goals are further divided into specific segments which define their mode of addressing AIDS (Garrett, 2013). These initiatives can be classified into following segments:
Adopting adequate awareness and healthcare communications programs to prevent the attainment and spread of new infections from existing patients;
Developing inter-stage precautions to decrease the progression of HIV and look up to better quality of life for patients under scan ;
Reduce the underlying social impacts of discrimination and prejudice along with the economically degrading impact of AIDS; and
Enhance cooperation to the prevalent global efforts dedicated towards cutting the spread of HIV and for curtailing the current hindrances to treatment scope.
Alignment of public health services with goals of health initiatives and intended progress
The governments of developing countries are already in pursuit of enhancing their initiatives over a number of factors that might be effective in curbing the menace of HIV. For example the federal government’s Initiative tend to open more government authorized funding in research and development for effective cure, prevention measures at intermediary levels , and communication driven awareness and social support programs for approaching all the sections of the society (Fowler, 2014). The governments of developing countries Indian and China have been advancing their efforts on developing advanced research, better surveillance, augmented public awareness programs, and subsequent evaluation of existing efforts in terms of attained results. Poorer nations in Africa are getting external support from agencies like W.H.O and UNICEF to protect people from getting victimized by HIV (Garrett, 2013).
Challenges in the road to mitigate the impact of global issue of HIV/AIDS
The challenges which pose an obstacle to global initiatives against HIV/AIDS can be classified into following main categories:
Suitable financing initiatives and funding from developing countries is the foremost challenges because countries with rapidly growing economies like India and China are not sufficiently spending on various developmental programs to cut the AIDS growth factors (Garrett, 2013).
The global wealth management turmoil results in allocation of national wealth in such a lopsided way that rich become richer and poor become poorer. This causes hampered access to basic healthcare facilities and testing availabilities to low income levels (Garrett, 2013).
Cultural and social acceptance is the prime challenges as society seeks banishment for those who acquire this disease with unacceptable sexual relations like homosexuality and sex trade (Quarashi, 2012).
Major innovation in technology has been enhancing the approach in all the aligned science but integration of healthcare technology to enhance the ease of awareness and cure are still a tough challenge (Quarashi, 2012).
Proposed ideas for advancing the initiatives: Involvement of key stakeholders
The following ideas are proposed along with the enhanced role of the involved stakeholders to amplify the approach of currently deployed global initiatives against HIV/AIDS.
Involving government agencies to partner in preventive measure and awareness. Call for inclusion of national, state level, territorial and municipal level agencies to vouch for better awareness.
Integration of social and community level opinion leaders to develop acceptance and acknowledgement for all the sections of society and socially boosting their morale to fight against HIV/AIDS.
Developing strategic tie-ups with leading finance and media institutions to develop a holistic model for enhanced financial support and higher level awareness programs for better collaborative effort.
Conclusion
The road to attainment of global indicatives against HIV/AIDS is tough because integration of social and economic factors are not attained sufficiently and lone efforts from government and international healthcare agencies is not apt enough. Hence, in order to develop an effective effort against factors which promulgate the spread of HIV/AIDS, the suggested ideas can be implemented to gain the desired results.
References
Garett, L. (2013). Existential Challenges to Global Health. New York University. Center on international cooperation: 8-28. Retrieved online from http://cic.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/garrett_challenges_global_health.pdf
Fowler, N. (2014). HIV remains a global health problem, thanks to ignorance and prejudice. The guardian. Retrieved online from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/08/hiv-aids-gay-healthcare-africa-russia
Quraishi, T. (2012). Global Health 2.0: What Does the Future Hold? Global Health review. Retrieved online from http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/hghr/print/spring-2011/global-health-2/
