You may think that HIV and AIDS don’t have any effect on you, but over 46 million people worldwide are living with it.  That’s a lot of people, probably a much higher number than you ever imagined.  AIDS is no longer considered a gay man’s disease, as it was when it was first discovered due to the fact that a large percentage of people infected were homosexual men.  Now, 30% of those infected in this country are women, and the 70% of men who are infected are not all gay.  As technology increases, not only have we been able to develop better medicines to fight this illness but we also have learned the ways in which it is transmitted from one person to another, and ways in which you can prevent it.

There are two major ways in which AIDS is transmitted: unprotected sex and sharing needles in drug use.  It is extremely unlikely that you will contract HIV if you donate blood or need a blood transplant, so don’t let all needles scare you.  Hospitals are incredibly clean and careful, never using the same needle more than once.  They also check and recheck the blood they receive as a donation over and over again to ensure that they do not use any blood that has any form of illness it in, from something simpler like anemia (iron deficiency in the blood) to something as deadly as AIDS.  There is no reason to be afraid of needles unless you’re using that you have already seen someone else use and know it is not clean.

Don’t think that this disease can’t affect you. Increases in HIV rates in adolescents ages13-24 were the highest reported in 2002, representing 8.7% of all those infected. In 1999, this percentage was 6.1, showing a rise of 2.6%. You may think that number is small, but in the state of Massachusetts alone, 2,644 adolescents are infected.  Scary, isn’t it?

There is no cure for HIV/AIDS, meaning those who are infected are sentenced to death.  However, thanks to modern medicine and advances in technology, we have wonderful drugs used to keep people infected with HIV living longer and happier lives.  While we still are searching for a cure, knowledge of the disease and how to prevent it is the only way we can become closer to a cure and hopefully avoid contracting this deadly disease.