HIV/AIDS BLACK AMERICAN EPIDEMIC

HIV is  transmitted by  anal, vaginal  and oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles,   exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, and  breastfeeding. It can be transmitted by any contact with an infected person’s bodily fluid that contains the AIDS virus in it. Body fluids are identified as  blood, semen, vaginal fluid, seminal fluid, , and breast mild.  

  First case os AIDS in America was June 1981. From 1981 to 2001 -- 1.4 MILLION persons in United States were infected with HIV.

    It is an increasingly acknowledged reality today that through out the world those most deeply affected by the HIV epidemic are also the most severely disadvantaged.   Fundamental structural inequalities and social prejudices  explain why  people of color are disproportionately impacted by AIDS and the accompanying stigma and discrimination.  The nearly two decades old global history of the HIV epidemic reinforces yet again the well documented interaction of disease, stigma and `spoiled’ social identities based on race, ethnicity, sexuality and so on.

The stigmatization of the African American identity in relation to diseases in the early twentieth century shows a remarkable continuity today in the context of HIV/AIDS at the turn of the century.  An illustration of this is the stigmatization and harassment of the Haitian people in the early 1980s, who were accused of having brought AIDS into the USA.

Although direct evidence of racial discrimination due to HIV/AIDS is not so readily available, there is research findings reporting ealth disparities among racial minorities that are related to racism and other forms of discrimination in society Today HIV/AIDS is largely recognized as a human rights issue (UNAIDS, 2002.