Module 7

A pandemic is widespread over a whole country or the world. A pandemic affects a very high proportion of a population. A pandemic is like a global epidemic that can spread over one continent. Many of the infectious diseases are not equal. There are other different terms for whether a disease can be considered a pandemic or not depending on how frequent the disease is over time. The different terms are an epidemic, a pandemic, an endemic, and an outbreak. An epidemic is a disease that can affect a big number of people within a community, population, or region. A pandemic is an epidemic that is spread over many countries or continents. An endemic is something that belongs to particular people or to a particular country. And an outbreak is a greater-than-anticipated increase in the number of endemic cases. It can be a single case in a new area. If the case is not fastly controlled, an outbreak can later become an epidemic.

Besides the coronavirus as one pandemic that is affecting humanity during these recent times, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is another pandemic that has occurred in the past, while it plagued humanity at its peak during 2005-2012. It was first identified in Congo in 1976 and has then proven itself as a global pandemic since 1981. In 1999, some researchers found SIV in a chimpanzee that was very similar to the HIV that was found in humans. After they discovered this connection, they concluded that it proved chimpanzees were the source of HIV-1 and that the disease somehow at some point crossed species from the chimpanzee to humans. Researchers believe that humans got this disease from hunting the monkeys and eating them. Another theory was that their blood getting into cuts or wounds on people in the course of hunting, while the body would usually fight the virus, instead it adapted itself.

HIV/AIDS has killed more than 36 million people. In the more recent times, there have been between 31-35 million people that are currently living with HIV, many of them living in Sub-Saharan Africa where 5% of the population is infected with the disease. Many people became more vulnerable to the HIV infection because of the key areas in which people were living in, areas in which people were living around the key affected populations. Anyone who was practicing unsafe sex with an infected person was at risk of the disease. As awareness grew with the pandemic, there were new treatments that were being developed to help HIV more manageable, and those with the disease can live a more productive life. Between 2005-2012, the global deaths from HIV/AIDS dropped from 2.2 million to 1.6 million.

During this pandemic in 2020, many of our lives took a big turn that affected the way we live and our activities. In my household, my mom and I are no longer working but fortunately, my stepdad is working because of his morning job. Their afternoon job is working at a restaurant but has been closed since the second half of March. My job is working in retail and is closed because it isn’t essential. Right now, there aren’t many people that are working due to the pandemic, yet we all have to figure out a way to pay bills like rent. My experience living with this pandemic isn’t too bad because gladly we are all healthy and safe. We only go out for groceries, but my youngest sister wants to go out to the stores. My other sister and I have to adapt to doing schooling online while we cannot attend school regularly for everyone’s safety. The few things that have been difficult are trying to explain to my 4-year-old sister why we cannot go outside and visit our friends to hangout. My sister and I are the ones that are helping her with school-related things like writing her name and teaching her the alphabet and her numbers. Whenever she sees people wearing masks, we try to explain to her that people have to wear a mask so that we don’t get each other sick during these times.