Hiv - Free Essay Examples and Topic Ideas

Life of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa

Mainly people living in Sub-Saharan Africa lack education because more than 2/3 children of the whole population are out of school because they live in rural areas or they are from the poorest families and can’t afford schools. Statistically, a child whose mother has no education is twice as likely to be out of school. Nearly 61% of adults can read and write. It is one of the lowest adult literacy rates in the world. More illiterate women are living in Sub-Saharan Africa than men so it is characterized by great gender inequality. Women have less access to education because of their gender and they mainly are getting married at age 14 so they don’t get proper education and that’s why they later have higher maternal mortality rates. These women don’t have proper healthcare knowledge and because of this they don’t know about contraceptives and condoms which help to avoid unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. In 2012 was evaluated in Sub-Saharan Africa 53000 women who wanted to avoid pregnancy were not using contraceptives.

Educating Women on HIV

As our goal is to increase the education level among women who live in Sub-Saharan Africa first, we should start educating them from an early age because girls are getting married in their teenage times. Also, if they will study how to use contraceptives, women living with HIV will prevent unwanted pregnancies and it will also promote women’s health and prevent new pediatric HIV infections. Some studies show that there is no difference of reproductive desires between people with HIV and the general population, there is evidence that 20% to 50% of people with HIV desire more children after the diagnosis. (Matthews, Crankshaw et al. 2013), because they don’t know that vertical transmission happens and they think that after giving birth they will get rid of HIV. They are so uneducated regarding HIV that they think after being diagnosed with HIV they will die immediately. Also, there are some facts that girls who already have HIV think that after losing their virginity they will get rid of the infection. Women who have HIV infection are immunocompromised and they can be easily affected by some other diseases such: tuberculosis, malaria, anemia etc. HIV increases the reactivation of TB and increases TB mortality, and TB disease can cause a decrease in CD4 count and an increase in viral replication. HIV-infected women have three-fold higher risk of anemia. Daily cotrimoxazole preventive therapy should be offered to all pregnant women living with HIV with immunosuppression (WHO clinical stage 2, 3, or 4 or CD4).