Write a 6 pages paper on on-going treatment to reduce hiv/aids in south africa from 2000 to date.

Write a 6 pages paper on on-going treatment to reduce hiv/aids in south africa from 2000 to date. It considers the various treatment options, most notably ART, and the various Public Health interventions that have been tried and offers an assessment of their impact together with the facilitating and confounding factors to many of these measures. The review also considers the economic constraints and implications that have modified the effects of some of these implications together with the economic effects of an individual contracting HIV/AIDS on a personal basis and the effect that such an illness has upon the delivery parameters of care. This review focuses on ART as the prime element in the tackling of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and considers several elements and aspects of its use individually. ART is used as a primary treatment, as a preventative and also as a maintenance intervention. There are a number of different types of ART (about 25). Only a small proportion of these are available for the bulk of the South African population and the review considers the impact of inappropriate use of the medication. The review also considers the issues of tuberculosis as a confounding factor for tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic and its implications for progress in the last two decades. The systematic review is then discussed and conclusions are drawn from the findings. These are extrapolated into implications for future research. Key words HIV/AIDS. South Africa. treatment. epidemic. ART. Declaration of own work Fatima Thomas Acknowledgements : Research question What impacts have ongoing interventions to reduce HIV/AIDS in South Africa from the year 2000 to date had on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa?. Chapter 1 Introduction & brief overview Sub-Saharan Africa is the currently described as the epicenter of the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune disease syndrome (UNAIDS & WHO 2006) with an estimated 25 million currently infected individuals. (Varga & Brookes 2008). In South Africa, specific or accurate data is not easy to find, but Baptiste et al. have found that the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the adolescent population is in the region of 15% (Baptiste, Bhana, Petersen, McKay, Voisin, et al. 2006) The HIV/AIDS epidemic is currently the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa with the UNAIDS report noting 1.7 million deaths amongst adults in 2008. (UNAIDS 2008) The impact of Antiretroviral Therapy Antiretroviral therapy (henceforth ART) has been a major milestone in the progress against the spread of HIV/AIDS. Anema et al. (2011), in their assessment of the medical and socio-economic impact of the epidemic, point out that HIV/AIDS has orphaned nearly 12 million young children in sub-Saharan Africa, many of these in South Africa.