Hiv / Aids And The United States - 1559 Words

Although HIV/AIDS affect people worldwide some areas of the United States are more drastically affected by it. The United States is the third country with the largest population having HIV/AIDS. In the U.S. alone there is more than one million individuals living with this disease. However HIV/AIDS is more prominent in the southern half of the United States, but more specifically in urban areas where people of color are more prone to live in. HIV/AIDS affects people of color living in these areas differently do to social, economic, and demographic factors such as stigma, discrimination, income, education, and geographic region. All of these different factors dictate why there are only eleven states in the southern half of the United States†¦show more content†¦HIV broken down stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The H stands for human, which means that this virus can only affect humans, the I stands for immunodeficiency and this means that HIV weakens the immune system, the V stands for virus which means that it can only reproduce itself by taking over cells within the body of an individual. HIV is similar to other viruses (like the flu) the only difference is that the body can fight the flu off but it cannot fight HIV off. â€Å"HIV can hide for long periods of time in the cells of your body and that it attacks a key part of your immune system – your T-cells or CD4 cells. Your body has to have these cells to fight infections and disease, but HIV invades them, uses them to make more copies of itself, and then destroys them.†(What is HIV/AIDS?) Once HIV enters the body it will never leave it, the only thing that an individual can do is neutralize it by keeping it from taking over all of the cells through medication. HIV then progresses to AIDS this however doesn’t mean that if a person has HIV they will get AIDS; if they treat early on they can prevent it from turning into AIDS. HIV can be transmitted through various ways and it affects different groups of people differently. HIV can be