AIDS: Such A Deadly Disease

Essay by doctormaqUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, November 2002

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AIDS

AIDS is a life and death issue. To have the AIDS disease is at present a senten,ce of slow but inevitable death. I've already lost one friend to AIDS. I may soon lose others. My own

sexual behavior and that of many of my friends has been profoundly altered by it. In my part of the country, one man in 10 may already be carrying the AIDS virus. While the figures may currently

be less in much of the rest of the country, this is changing rapidly. There curreently is neither a cure, nor even an effective treatment, and no vaccine either. But there are things that have been

PROVEN immensely effevctive in slowing the spread of this hideously lethal disease. In this essay I hope to present this information. History and Overview: AIDS stands for Acquired Immune

Defficiency Disease. It is caused by a virus. The disease origiunated somewhere in Africa about 20 years ago.

There it first appeared as a mysterious ailment afflicting primarily heterosexuals of

both sexes. It probably was spread especially fast by primarily female prostitutes there. AIDS has already become a crisis of STAGGERING proportions in parts of Africa. In Zaire, it is estimated

that over twenty percent of the adults currently carry the virus. That figure is increasing. And what occurred there will, if no cure is found, most likely occur here among heteroosexual folks. AIDS

was first seen as a dise.ase of gay males in this country. This was a result of the fact that gay males in this culture in the days before AIDS had an average of 200 to 400 new sexual contacts

per year. This figure was much higher than common practice among heterosexual (straight) men or women. In addition, it turned out that rectal sex was a...