health

HIV is transmitted in three ways: sexually, by anal or vaginal
intercourse; parenterally, by transfusion with contaminated blood or
injection with contaminated needles; and perinatally, by passage of
infection from mothers to their infants However, these modes of
transmission are not equally efficient. Transfusion with contaminated
blood is a highly efficient means of transmission; about 95% of those
who receive infected blood become infected. A study conducted by
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that
seroconversion occurred in 4 of every 1,000 health care workers who
were inadvertently inoculated by contaminated hollow needles used on
patients with HIV infection. No health care workers who were pricked
by solid (suture) needles used in HIV-infected patients became infected.
Male homosexual (anal) intercourse is an efficient means of virus
transmission, as shown by the epidemiologic pattern observed in the
United States and Western Europe. The efficiency of transmission in heterosexual (vaginal) intercourse is reported to range from 0.1% to 1%. However, this rate may be augmented four to eight times by the Presence of a cofactor, such as genital ulcer disease, to 0.4% to 8%.
This mechanism of heterosexual transmission accounts for the 1:1 ratio of AIDS cases among men and women in Africa and Asia, in contrast to the predominance of the disease in men in industrialized Western countries. Perinatal transmission is the third mechanism of virus spread. About 25% to 45% of children born to infected mothers are actively infected with HIV, and AIDS develops in most of them within the first 2 years of life. The virus transmission through infected breast milk has been attributed in 10% to 33% of mother–baby transmission.
HIV transmission has not been documented to occur with any other type of exposure. Intensive studies of household contacts of HIV-infected patients
Have demonstrated virus transmission only to sexual partners. There is no public health concern regarding possible HIV transmission in the usual school, community, or employment settings.
As of December 1998, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS estimated that, since the start of the epidemic two decades ago, at least 47 million individuals were infected with HIV worldwide. Of these, 13.9 million have died of AIDS, including 4.7 million women and 3.2 million
children. Presently, there are 33.4 million individuals living with HIV/AIDS across the world; more than 95% of them live in developing countries .
Each day, about 7,000 young adults aged 15 to 24 get infected with HIV, mostly in developing countries of Africa and Asia.