What a Week

For the past week I have been in a terrible mood. I haven’t been feeling good and I have been completely stressed out. I moved back to Ft. Lauderdale at the beginning of this semester so I’ve had to find all new places to study and even new doctors to go to. I normally go to a library to study and use the internet because the internet service at my house is not that great. I finally found a library that I like to go to and they found two of the movies that I want to watch for assignment four and ordered them for me. The biggest issue about having to use public libraries now is the hours they are open. I was so used to the UCF library staying open to one in the morning and since I am a total night owl I loved it. The latest the libraries here stay open is eight at night (not that great for me).

So with regards to this class I have been staying on track pretty well. I found a few test centers that I can go to, to get my HIV test. Now I just have to call and see which one is the best one and make an appointment. I am not really nervous about getting tested because I have already been tested before. I also need to start reading my book choice for assignment 3. I am actually looking forward to reading it, now I just have to find some free time to get it done. Also I realized that I won’t be able to make it to a panel meeting since I live three hours away and I ordered the book I need to read to replace that assignment. I feel like this semester I have had to do so many reading assignments not only in this class but in my other three as well. I am not that big of a reader with the exception of the Twilight books (love them) so this is rather new to me! Also I got 100% on assignment two which made me very happy since I was not happy at all with my assignment one feedback. All in all this class is going well for me and I still feel overwhelmed at times but I am much more confident then when I started.

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The AIDS organization that I found is called UNAIDS. It is one of the United Nations programs located in Geneva, Switzerland. This program works in 80 different countries and works to “prevent new HIV infections, care for people living with HIV, and mitigates the impact of the epidemic” (UNAIDS, 2009). Their main goal is to “stop and reverse the spread of HIV” (UNAIDS, 2009). They eventually hope to provide “universal access to prevention, treatment, and support services” for people who have HIV (UNAIDS, 2009). They also research which countries are in need of HIV programs and work to get programs placed there to help educate and treat the people of that country.

Did You Know: Children with HIV

In infants and children HIV develops rapidly because their immune system is not fully developed. If these children do not receive treatment a third of them will die before their first birthday and half will die before their second birthday (Pembrey, 2009). In the past few years the number of children that were getting antiretroviral therapy (ART) has increased but in 2008 less then 40% of the children who live in low-middle income countries were not receiving ART (Pembrey, 2009). The availability of these medications is not the only problem that is causing children to die from HIV, the time it takes for a child to be tested is a bigger problem in these low-middle income countries. In countries that are developed children can be tested within 48 hours after birth but it countries that are less fortunate it could take up to 18 months for a child to be tested (Pembrey, 2009). From what I previously wrote you can see that a child that has to wait 18 months to be tested most likely would not still be alive when they are allowed to be tested if they were HIV+.

References:

Web: UNAIDS, (2009). Uniting the world against AIDS. Retrieved February 3, 2010, from UNAIDS: http://www.unaids.org/en/

Web: Pembrey, G. (2009, December 22). HIV Treatment for Children. Retrieved February 3, 2010, from AVERT: http://www.avert.org/hiv-children.htm