In honor of HIV Vaccine Awareness Day next month, we are highlighting the need for a vaccine, and the continuing efforts of thousands of volunteers, community members, health professionals and scientists who work every day to find one that is safe and effective. To all those dedicated people, we want to say thank you!

A preventative HIV vaccine is a substance that teaches the body’s immune system to recognize and protect itself against HIV. Vaccines currently under development are created from man-made materials that cannot cause HIV. This is unlike other vaccines, which uses a small amount of the disease to teach your body to be immune.

Supporters of the HIV vaccine hope for several outcomes of the research. The goals include preventing infection in most men and women living with HIV/AIDS; preparing a person’s immune system to block continued infection and eliminate the HIV virus; and delaying or preventing the onset of AIDS.

The goal is to create a vaccine that is 100 percent effective in preventing infection in everyone, but even a partially effective vaccine will also make a great difference. Creating a partially effective vaccine will stop the disease in a portion of the population, thereby decreasing the number of people able to spread HIV to others.

There are two kinds of HIV vaccines currently being researched – therapeutic and preventative. A preventative vaccine is given to HIV negative people. It’s designed to stop infection and control the spread of HIV. It does not cure AIDS. Scientists believe that much like current HIV/AIDS treatments, multiple vaccines will be needed to treat people already infected with HIV. A therapeutic vaccine is one that is researched for the treatment of people with HIV or AIDS.

There are three phases an HIV vaccine must go through before it can be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Phase I includes testing on a small number of healthy HIV negative people. During this phase, volunteers are given different amounts of the vaccine. Phase I can last between 12 and 18 months. Phase II can last up to two years, and includes hundreds of HIV negative volunteers who test the safety and immune responses of the vaccine. The final phase—Phase III—includes thousands of HIV negative volunteers and can last between three and four years.

An effective HIV vaccine is one of the best long-term solutions to stopping the epidemic spread of AIDS. The vaccine cannot be developed fast enough! Nearly 25 million people have died from AIDS worldwide. An estimated 40 million people are living with AIDS and approximately 14,000 people are infected every hour. Even more concerning, approximately 13 million children who are 15 years of age and younger have lost one or both parents to AIDS. This is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.

There is no cure for AIDS, so the continued push to find a vaccine is crucial. The availability of anti-retroviral therapy can dramatically decrease AIDS related deaths; however, the regimen is complex and costly. Often it can have serious side effects on the patient’s health. Finding a working HIV vaccine will save millions of lives, much like the polio vaccine did so many years ago. HIV Vaccine Awareness Day is May 18th – take time today to find out how you can help raise awareness in your community!

HIV is typically spread via these three causes. HIV may be spread to infants from their mothers during childbirth or during nursing. Sexual contact with someone infected with HIV. Contact with an infected needle or syringe (Sharing needles with someone infected with HIV).

HIV Precautions:

- Discuss HIV and other STDs with your sexual partner.
- Learn as much as possible about your partner’s past sexual behavior, other sexual partners, drug use and lifestyle.
- Use a condom every time you have sexual intercourse.
- Never share needles or syringes with anyone.
- Get tested for HIV and other STDs.

Although there is no known cure for HIV/AIDS, it is a manageable virus. Advances in HIV treatments since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s have helped to weaken the progression of the HIV infection to AIDS. As a result of advancements in medical research and sciences, the number of fatalities resulting from AIDS has decreased in the United States. All blood donated to blood banks and infirmaries in the United States are now tested for HIV. As a result, contracting HIV from a blood transfusion is very rare.

Like many drug treatments, the medications used to treat HIV/AIDS can cause complications and side effects. Antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) on rare occasion can cause serious medical complications including: changes in metabolism and bone loss. Patients need to be aware of possible complications when taking any medication and be alert to their body’s response to the drug. It is important to communicate any concerns regarding your HIV treatment India with your physician.

Research has shown that HIV can create strains resistant to antiretroviral drugs when patients fail to take all their prescribed medications consistently. It is essential for patients to talk to their physicians regarding their concerns or hardships with their suggested drug regimens. Some patients experience disagreeable side effects and may have difficulty keeping up with the required daily medication schedule. If this is the case, it is recommended that the patient and physician find an alternative solution as quickly as possible as inconsistency with antiretroviral drugs may allow the HIV infection to become resistant to that specific treatment.

A lot may doubt the necessity of checking your partner or even yourself for sexually transmitted diseases, well this article shall enlighten you on your doubts and interest to learn more about STD testing, this article will let you realize the importance and advantage of knowing and visiting a STD clinic from time to time for testing and information.

Various procedures can be applied in STD testing; first thing to ask you in your visit in a clinic and prior to any test will be about your risk factors, after the initial interview, this will be the basis of the necessary tests to diagnose your condition. Screening for STD’s like Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, or others should be more often and more advised to sexually active people with a new partner or those with multiple sex partners.

STD clinics offer a more comfortable and upfront approach for individuals who would like to discover their current condition on whether they are infected or not. Unlike most private medical practitioners who does not perform STD screening unless you specify too, STD clinics are dedicated primarily and only for STD testing and information. Confidentiality on your results is a primary concern for STD clinics, thus your results will be kept confidential between you and the doctor, the process of testing will be coded and some STD clinics are not required to archive STD results. Most people would assume that a test will be given directly upon visitation, but testing for STD is only done upon request, not unless you have shown tremendous symptoms leading to a diagnosis of STD. But STDs unluckily do not manifest symptoms most of the time.

Any slight symptom of STD should not be ignored; it is vital that you submit yourself for testing to confirm your condition and avoid further complication. STD symptoms are often asymptomatic but if it comes to manifest, it would include symptoms such as abnormal discharges from the genitals, sores, itching, sensation of burning during urination, and pain during intercourse.

STDs are out there in many types with varied symptoms and this can be prevented by abstinence or the practices of safe sex through using condom but also remember that not all STDs are curable; hence prevention is better than cure. If you suspect that you are infected, or if you suspect that you have come in contact sexually with an infected person, have yourself checked for STD right away and do not let the virus spread and cause irreversible damage on your body!

STD can be very dangerous to men and women, young or old, pregnant or not, this can bring about many irreversible damage in an individual’s body like pelvic inflammatory disease and epidydimitis that both can lead to infertility. STDs can complicate to medical conditions such as meningitis, or can lead to irreversible damage to the human internal organs and thus you must do all you can to prevent it and if possible, detect it early on to have the proper cure or treatment.

People who work closely in raising HIV awareness in Africa and other countries, or those who are deeply familiar with the inspiring stories of people living with HIV, need to wake up to a new, unforeseen condition of HIV/AIDS: a dangerous increase in ignorance and complacency regarding all aspects of this worldwide epidemic.

If you’ve gone on a mission trip anywhere on the globe to help repair the devastation wrought by HIV/AIDS, or if you are up-to-date on current information and therefore all too familiar with the heartbreaking statistics—that the percentages of women, young people, and African Americans with AIDS keep increasing at a scary rate, and in fact are at an all-time high; and that more than 25 million people have died from AIDS related diseases and currently more than 33 million people are living with the HIV virus—you may be shocked to discover that many other people are not only unaware of the devastating scope of this epidemic, but also lack awareness of the basic facts about HIV/AIDS.

I recently spoke to an American woman who had been moved by stories of women living with HIV/AIDS and wanted to volunteer at mission organizations such as Beaded Hope. Speaking of Beaded Hope in particular, she suggested that its focus should be shifted from selling jewelry to selling items never to be worn by the customer. She thought jewelry or any other item worn next to the body carried a risk of contracting HIV if it had been made by someone with the virus.

I was stunned that at this point in time, after all the massive efforts to raise HIV/AIDS awareness, a well-meaning, concerned volunteer could be so poorly informed. It is impossible to transmit the HIV virus on an inanimate object – the only way to contract it is through infected body fluids.

This woman’s disturbing suggestion confirmed a growing fear of mine: that in spite of a glut of readily available information regarding HIV/AIDS, complacency about and ignorance of the facts are on the rise.

It is crucial that those of us who work to raise HIV awareness in Africa and elsewhere maintain our efforts to educate everyone about those facts. Such as:

1. HIV can only be transmitted in three ways, through unprotected sex with someone who has the virus, by sharing needles and by an infected mother to her child during delivery or breastfeeding.

2. HIV/AIDS is a pandemic. In 2008, 33 million people in the world were living with HIV/AIDS. An estimated two million people died from AIDS related causes that year.

3. The number of people living with HIV has risen every year since the discovery of the virus and continues to grow.

4. Regarding women and HIV, even though far too many people think this is a “men’s” disease, fully half of those living with HIV/AIDS are women.

5. AIDS is the second most common cause of death among 20-24 year olds.

Now more than ever, anyone who has ever been touched by inspiring stories of people living with HIV, or who has seen AIDS awareness falling while widely available knowledge of other diseases such as cancer permeates public discussion, has an important obligation to get the word out. Don’t let complacency and ignorance add to the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS.