Question:

Reflective and critical analysis on the hiv/AIDS system in the UK and South Africa.

What is HIV? And why is it important

Some Demographics to Consider

You need to demonstrate a critical understanding about HIV /AIDS. This will require that you present some facts, make comparisons and examine key issues from a UK or global perspective.

It is important to have reliable references to back up your work.

Second paragraph

Compare and contrast Hiv health systems in the UK & South Africa

Global Health allows you to briefly examine some world facts & statistics, but the central focus and critical discussion between South Africa and the United Kingdom on hiv/aids is South Africa (SA).

These two countries have different Hiv health systems.

Take into account the impact of health economies on education, staffing, and resources.

Is there anything one country can learn about the other?

Answer to Question: B721 Adult Nursing

HIV is a virus which attacks the immune system. The immune system protects the body from different foreign organisms.

This virus is responsible mainly for the destruction or immune cells.

It slowly reduces the immune system by constantly replicating new copies.

It is when the person’s immune system fails to defend them against common colds and flues. This leads to death.

The condition it causes can be called AIDS (Tanser et.al. 2013).

In 2015, a statistical analysis revealed that about 19 million people in West and South Africa were suffering from this dangerous disease.

You can arrange the nations in decreasing order, with the next being Western Africa and Central Africa, and then Asia Pacific.

They are then followed by North America as well and Western and Central Europe.

Latin America and Caribbean, with 2,000,000 aids patients, is followed by Eastern Europe (central Asia) at 105,000,000.

Aids are afflicting 230,000 people in North Africa and Middle East.

It can be seen that many have been threatened with death by aids.

Additionally, the results of various initiatives and actions taken to spread awareness and lower the rate of new infection were not always consistent. However, some nations succeeded in reducing the number of cases by 50% in the past decade. Many countries have failed to establish strong foundations in prevention and awareness programs.

US$ 19billion has already been allocated for various programs in low- and mid-income countries, with 57% of HIV resources being managed from the domestic budgets. 2015).

Multiple analyses have shown that the growing number of infections across many countries will require a total of US% 26.2 Million to make efforts to reduce aids in 2020. In 2030, US$ 23.9 Billion is expected to be spent (Bor et. al. 2013).

South Africa is home to approximately 7 million people who are living with HIV/AIDS in 2015. This includes 19.2% of adults.

In 2015, there were approximately 380,000 new HIV cases. 180,000 aids-related deaths were also reported.

48% of adults are currently on antiretroviral treatments. This indicates that 52% still have not been treated. It also means that the large government initiative to reduce the problem is not yet a success.

The number of people affected in the United Kingdom is much lower.

The UK has a population of 102,200 with a 0.16% incidence and only 6095 cases being reported.

A mere 594 victims have died and approximately 96% of adults receiving retroviral treatment have survived.

South Africa has a large number of people who are affected by the disorder. These include men who have sex, men who are unable to use condoms, and men who have used condoms to provide customer satisfaction.

These include the use of used syringes, injecting equipment, and half-reused needles.

Because they are HIV carriers, orphans often abandon their children and get involved in sex trading which spread the HIV virus (Bradshaw, et al. 2016).

Additionally, women and adolescent girl have many safety problems in the country. 2012 studies revealed that infected women had a higher rate than those in men.

It had begun counseling and testing programs which led to more people seeking testing.

McCormack et.al. developed the PMTCT program which allows women to test for HIV in antenatal appointments. 2016).

HCT renewal was also a very successful program.

Researchers discovered some problems that could help us unravel the puzzle of the higher rate for infection, despite the many efforts of the government.

The researchers found that HIV testing awareness is linked to the person’s socioeconomic background.

They found that most people who have HIV testing done are those with higher education, work experience, HIV knowledge, and higher perceptions of risk (Okoror, et al. 2014).

This could indicate that low-skilled or uninformed individuals, as well as those who do not have a high school education, skip the test. This increases the chance of more victims going unreported (Dos Santos and al. 2014).

Another reason was that rural people are less likely to be tested for HIV than their urban counterparts.

This indicates the failure of government to include rural areas within the programs. It also marks the reason for the ineffective initiative.

In the United Kingdom, however, more than 87% are aware of this disease and 94% have been treated.

The number of drug-using people and victims in this country is also higher for the same sex, but the safety and well-being of the women and orphans are not endangered (Raymond Hill and Pozniack 2015).

Therefore, South Africa has a lower number of aids victims than the United Kingdom.

The UK has a large HIV testing program that almost covers all of the important clinics. Thus, testing is more accessible.

Online access to home sampling kits was available for those who wanted to test at home, increasing the availability of testing.

Although South Africa did have testing, there were not many programs offered by the UK’s healthcare centers.

UK healthcare systems proposed Needle and syringe programme (NSPs), Opioid replacement therapy (OST), among other things to increase awareness among different socioeconomic backgrounds (Williams et.al. 2014).

UK promoted awareness via school education, public programmes, advertisements, mass media, etc. which resulted in people being more aware than was the case for South Africa. (Whiteside 2016).

The 20% foreign funding and the remainder of the domestic budget are the reasons for these differences. South Africa is a developing country, so the percentage is lower than in developed countries like UK.

With very few resources available for chronic disorders, poverty is high.

UK is lacking in staffing and qualified doctors (Nosyk und al. 2014).

However, there are promises that things will improve. South Africa has partnered with several programs to help the country develop.

The main factor responsible for the variation in HIV-related statistics such as awareness, mortality, prevalence, and patients is the absence or systematic approach to a specific problem.

If you look closely at the approach, you will see that the UK had succeeded in raising awareness to a great extent. They had reached over 95% of South Africa’s population. Only 48% of South Africa has.

The UK had greater coverage than South Africa, with a much larger percentage of people being tested.

Advertising, social marketing, and the publication of policies supported the process. However, it was less strong in South America (Punyacharoensein. 2015).

South Africa’s limited financial resources meant that they were unable to conduct mass-based, quantitative research. This was evident in their efforts.

The UK also used innovative strategies and programs like the Needle & Syringe Programs (NSPs), Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) and others. These programs are not commonly found in South America.

South Africa’s healthcare centres have not been able find competent healthcare professionals capable of handling westernized treatments. Therefore, they are not able to bring large numbers of patients under retroviral treatment like the United Kingdom.

These professionals don’t follow evidence-based practices and lack the financial resources that are required to offer innovative programs, online kits, rural coverage, and other services.

Nurses must have the skills to correctly identify symptoms, educate patients, make them aware, and communicate with others. Failure to do so can put patients at risk (Birrell et. al. 2013).

Effective policy development and social media marketing campaigns can help to increase awareness of all age cohorts. This is crucial for programs that are successful in South Africa to mitigate the problem (Birrell et. al. 2013).

As a professional medical staff member, I will make sure that every patient is aware of the risks and encourage them to have HIV testing.

Tostevin et.al. (2005) believe patient education to be the best way to treat this deadly disease and to keep them from participating in any activities that might increase the chances of spreading it. 2017).

The whole discussion shows that to effectively tackle a critical problem like creating awareness and decreasing AIDS rates in patients, healthcare sectors must be organized and plan their financial resources.

Without a broad-based awareness campaign that includes both rural and urban areas, testing programs will not produce the right results. Programs should be designed to cover all aspects such as social marketing, advertisement and free HIV testing.

It is important to plan properly for the elimination of these diseases. In addition, competent health care nurses play a vital role in helping patients become health-literate and help them take the right steps to protect their health.References:

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