Culture Essays Example

The linkage between poverty and the HIV

There is a strong linkage between poverty and the HIV. Poverty and HIV generate each another. It is like a “vicious circle” with poverty that creates a climate where the HIV spreads quickly, and the HIV pandemic that worsens and contributes to poverty. What should be done to prevent the spread of the HIV and to reduce poverty? Should the efforts be focused on HIV prevention first, and then the poverty, or vice versa?
The answer is that to solve this problem the steps should be made simultaneously in different directions. Joia Mukherjee shows that such “factors including economic privation, gender inequality, lack of opportunity for education and work, and migration for work increases the risk of contracting HIV” (120). Poor people lack not only money, they strive to get the basic needs and important skills for their survival. So, there is a need to take a multi-sector approach with a great number of programs that address the inter-relationships between poverty and the HIV including economic, health educational and financial programs. These programs may help poor people with the HIV stay healthy, live longer lives, and reduce the spread of the HIV, its transmission to others. The main aims of these programs should be: preventive measures taken to ensure the safety of donated blood, ensuring 100% testing of pregnant women for HIV antibodies, secure medical care and monitoring the epidemic situation in the countries where HIV diseases increase, financial support for the people who can`t pay for their treatment, and effective HIV education with necessary information about protection from becoming infected with this virus.

Work Cited

J. S. Mukherjee, Structural Violence, Poverty and the AIDS Pandemic, 50 Development (2007) pp. 115–121. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100376