Health
Why Are More Elderly People Suffering from AIDS?
If it were not for the children’s unit to bring family members for free physical examination, 78-year-old Grandpa Wang would never have thought that he actually contracted AIDS.
At this moment, Grandpa Wang was holding a diagnosis report, sitting in front of the doctor with his hands covering his face and sobbing. He had no intention of caring about whether he had coronary heart disease or diabetes. This great sense of shame and despair of future life made him suddenly seem to fall. Into the abyss.
After a long time, he slowly raised his head and asked the doctor: “How much time do I have?”
It is surprising that more than 70 years of age suffers from AIDS, but it can actually trigger our thinking.
The elderly, not far from AIDS
Statistics from the United Nations AIDS Programme (UNIAIDS) show that there were approximately 35.3 million AIDS patients worldwide in 2014, of which nearly 4.2 million were elderly patients. In 2012, the total number of elderly AIDS patients in my country increased by more than five times compared with 2005.
According to data released by the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2016, there were 13,000 elderly male AIDS patients in my country, 3.6 times the number in 2010.
At the beginning of 2017, the State Council included the elderly as key missionary groups for the first time in the “China’s 13th Five-Year Plan for Containment and Prevention of AIDS.
If you still think that AIDS is a disease of young people, you are very wrong! Once the elderly suffer from AIDS, the two major hazards caused should not be underestimated, and they should arouse our attention!
Harm 1: AIDS increases the mortality rate of the elderly
Once the elderly are infected with AIDS, their resistance is significantly reduced, so they are more likely to suffer from various diseases, including cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Especially the elderly have poor physical fitness. If the elderly with basic diseases are infected with AIDS, then the condition The development will be faster, and the fatality rate will increase accordingly!
Harm 2: The elderly suffer from AIDS and cannot get adequate treatment when they go to the doctor
Earlier, there was news that the elderly unintentionally found AIDS when they went to the hospital for physical examination, but they were rejected by the doctor. Although there are a minority of people who discriminate against AIDS, there are still most general hospitals that directly refuse treatment or transfer them to other infectious disease hospitals after receiving AIDS patients. Some infectious disease hospitals have a low comprehensive level, which is very effective for AIDS patients. Treatment is also quite unfavorable.
As most elderly people grow older, both their physical strength and physique are not as good as before. If unfortunately, they are infected with AIDS. Compared with younger people, treatment becomes more difficult and tricky. However, the number of elderly people infected with AIDS has been increasing year by year, which also tells us that the attention of AIDS health education should also be placed on the elderly.
Why are more and more elderly people suffering from AIDS?
AIDS is a disease that is very harmful and easily attacks the human immune system. Currently, there is no complete cure. In the past, we always focused on young men and women. We did not know that the elderly are also prone to AIDS! So why are more and more elderly people infected with AIDS?
- Desire still exists
With age the organs of the human body will gradually degenerate, but the desire for sex has always been there. For the elderly, we always put the label of “asexuality” naturally, thinking that playing mahjong, dancing square dancing, and bringing grandchildren are their lives. We will not take the initiative to pay attention to the “sex” of the elderly, or think that the elderly There is no need for “sex” and “desire”, and even more so that older people are not allowed to have sex.
When the elderly reveal a little bit of “sexual affairs”, they are easily discriminated against or ridiculed as “irregular” and “perverted.” In this atmosphere of neglect and discrimination, a gray area has gradually emerged-the elderly have improper sexual behavior. It is understood that there are now easily accessible and cheap “sexual services” in some hidden corners of cities and villages. People as an audience group naturally join the AIDS-infected army.
- No sense of protection, or even disapproval
It is difficult for most people to associate AIDS with the elderly, so the elderly naturally think that AIDS is very far away from them, and even the vast majority of the elderly do not know how AIDS is spread.
Condoms are an important way to prevent the spread of AIDS, and in the eyes of the elderly, pregnant condoms are only used for contraception. Therefore, the elderly do not actively use condoms when they have sex. This kind of unprotected sex is The lack of awareness of protection eventually allowed AIDS to spread among the elderly.
- The elderly have poor immunity and are more likely to get AIDS
When the elderly get older, their immune system is not as good as before, so they are also very prone to diseases, especially when they have chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes, the chance of contracting AIDS is higher, and most of them The elderly do not think about being infected with AIDS, and they may have reached a more serious stage when they are diagnosed, or they have already transmitted AIDS to more people.
Please stop talking about Ai Sebian
AIDS is a relatively long and complex process from the initial to the end of infection, and the clinical manifestations caused by different stages in this infection process are also different. The clinical process of AIDS infection is subdivided into acute phase, asymptomatic phase and AIDS phase. Among them, patients in the first two stages are called AIDS patients, and they are called AIDS patients until they develop into AIDS.
Acute phase: Two to four weeks after HIV infection is the acute phase, there are obvious symptoms of fever, accompanied by sore throat, night sweats, diarrhea, joint pain, skin rash, and lymphatic enlargement.
Asymptomatic period: The asymptomatic period of AIDS lasts for six to eight years, during which HIV replicates in the patient’s body and damages the immune system, resulting in a decrease in CD4+ T lymphocyte count and is infectious.
AIDS stage: The final stage of AIDS infection becomes the AIDS stage. At this time, the patient’s HIV plasma viral load increases, with persistent fever and recurrent oral ulcers, especially herpes on the skin, accompanied by pneumonia, enteritis, etc. A variety of complex clinical symptoms.
Many people are afraid of AIDS because they think that being infected with AIDS is equivalent to getting a terminal illness. In fact, this idea is not correct. Although there is no complete cure for AIDS, AIDS is a preventable and controllable chronic disease. Clinical scientific prevention methods can greatly reduce the infection rate of AIDS. At the same time, the early detection and treatment of AIDS is also extremely important. Once AIDS is diagnosed As long as you receive standardized treatment as soon as possible, your life expectancy and quality of life are almost the same as ordinary people.
At present, the country is gradually increasing its attention and investment in AIDS, among which measures such as increasing medical insurance investment and increasing medical insurance drugs are obvious to all, giving more AIDS patients more and better treatment options. And patients infected with AIDS need not be afraid, as long as they receive regular treatment and standardized medication, start antiretroviral treatment as soon as possible to suppress HIV, effectively reduce the spread of HIV and help AIDS patients continue their lives.
Infecting AIDS is an extremely painful thing for the patient himself and his family. Therefore, it is especially important to stay away from unclean sex and take protective measures in life. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the elderly. Not only can we not ignore their sexual needs, but also actively promote their knowledge of safe sex and AIDS!
