HIV/AIDS

Course overview

The history of AIDS in the United States goes back to approximately 1969, when it was thought that the disease was introduced to the US by a Haitian immigrant. In the early part of the 1980¿s, larger city doctors began seeing a type of cancer in young men that usually is restricted to older men of Mediterranean origin. What is now known as Karposi¿s sarcoma was then coined as ¿Gay Cancer¿ and added to the stigma of Homosexuality in the United States. However, cases in young children, women, and person¿s having blood transfusions began to occur and the symptoms were not limited to skin cancers, but also included specific types of pneumonia. In 1982, the CDC renamed the syndrome AIDS. With the advanced strides made in medical treatment, persons with HIV are living longer. In New York City, where an estimated 100,000 persons are estimated to be living with the virus, over 30 percent of those are over fifty years of age. With medical advances that allow HIV patients to live longer, comes another set of realities as these patients are presented with compounding diagnoses never before encountered in this patient population and physicians are presented with the overwhelming task of attempting to manage the increased pathological burden in these patients. While fewer people are dying of HIV, the numbers of infected persons are reaching epidemic proportions. In 2003, and estimated 1,039,000 to 1,185,000 persons in the United States were estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS and 24- 27% of these persons were totally unaware that they were infected with the disease. This means that almost one fourth of over one million persons remain untreated and undiagnosed; and potentially are unknowingly spreading the disease to others. Men still account for the greater number of HIV/AIDS cases present in the United States. In 2006, men accounted for three fourths of all cases diagnosed in the 33 states having confidential name based reporting. 49 30 18 1 1 0 10 20 30 40 50 Total Cases 35,314 African American White Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander American Indian/Alaska Native Percentage of Cases by Ethnicity Diagnosed in 2006 Data Based on the 33 states having confidential name based reporting.