HIV/AIDS Public Health Policies
The devastating impact of HIV/AIDS is experienced throughout the world. In order to conduct an in-depth examination of public health policies regarding this disease, the nations of Egypt and Tanzania were selected. These nations were chosen as while they are both located in the continent of Africa, they possess dramatically different rates of occurrence of HIV/AIDS. The prevalence of HIV as the percent of population ages 15-49 years of age in 2014 for Egypt is .1% while the identical demographic for Tanzania is 5.1% (Worldbank, 2014). Yet in comparison, both countries have been dealing with HIV/AIDS for a similar length of time. The first case of HIV/AIDS in …show more content…
Both nations use education and counseling as a primary method of prevention. However, Tanzania unlike Egypt, has financial limitations as as a country with a variety of religious groups whose views make AIDS education a very controversial subject (Avert, 2012). Never the less the amount of money available to prevention measures does not guarantee the infetion rate to remain low. Egypt is one of the few areas of the world where the occurrence of HIV/AIDS is increasing (Redvers, 2014). Conversely, Tanzania has been able to reduce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS from 5.7% to 5.1% (Tanzania Commission for AIDS, …show more content…
Specifically, Tanzania is also not using widely medications recommended for treatment of HIV and in fact had only begun to implement WHO recommendation regarding phase-out of the antiretroviral drug stavudine in 2011 (Avert, 2012). The availability of qualified healthcare workers is a major issue in Egypt. According to Redvers (2014), “medical students get only two hours of HIV training during their six years of medical school…some students thought bathing more often prevented HIV and swimming in a pool or sharing food with someone with HIV could bring on infection.” (p. 2).
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Conclusion
Each country is unique in it social views as well as financial capacity to enact preventative measures and to provide care for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. For Tanzania and Egypt these social views and financial ability directly impact the amount of intervention the government is able to provide in the fight against the disease and the number of citizens infected with