Week number 2!!!

Did You Know?

Currently there are many issues with whether a person should have to disclose their HIV status. One area that drew some attention from me was the issue of roommates disclosing their HIV status with each other. I came across an article on the New York Times website and it discussed how the author doesn’t feel that a person should need to disclose their HIV status with a roommate. One of the issues that he was mentioning was an HIV positive roommate should take extra precaution with their roommates and that would prevent mishaps. With this subject I believe that there should be different circumstances that can contribute to whether a person should disclose their status. For example me and my roommate are extremely close and share a bathroom, which means that we could accidentally use a razor or a toothbrush. Because we have close contact I would expect her to tell me something as serious as their HIV status. Now if roommates simply live together and there is no way of having bodily fluids swapped, then there shouldn’t be a need for them to disclose their status to each other. As you all can see disclosing a person’s status can be difficult and should be taken seriously.

HIV week 2!
This week I started on module 1. With this module I dug deeper into what pandemic, epidemic, and endemic really mean. Before I started I had a general idea about these terms, but I couldn’t differentiate between them. I used the Merriam-Webster online dictionary to help me define the terms. After researching the terms it became clear how they were different from each other. It also allowed me to understand that HIV is a pandemic, because it affects a large amount of people around the world and not just in one specific area. I was also instructed to find the prevalence of HIV in different countries and states. This opened my eyes. How could one virus affect so many people? And on top of that how can people still leave themselves vulnerable to this virus? Don’t they hear about it, see it, or care about it? Of course this doesn’t mean that everyone was just ignorant and contracted HIV, I mean that HIV is so huge, how can anyone not have every guard they can have up? Since I have started this module it has made me aware just how prevalent this issue is in our world. We need to inform anyone and everyone about this virus and how they can protect themselves and others.

In addition to blogging about this week’s events, I was supposed to look at AIDS organizations outside of the United States. I chose to look into an organization named AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific or ASAP. This is a non governmental body of HIV and AIDS organizations. The main focus is to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS throughout Asia and the Pacific. They want people to talk about the issues with HIV/AIDS and promote awareness. ASAP also works with regional sectors in Asia and the Pacific to help advocacy efforts. Even though they are independent from the government, they will work along side them to help the cause.

http://www.aidssocietyap.org/