HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Aspects of Co -infection- Malaria

HIV/AIDS is a major concern in public health s it has been a major cause of death in the better parts of Africa. The African continent holds more than 15% of the world’s population and 23.8 Million people are infected. In the sub-Saharan Africa only, estimated around 69% of people living with HIV and 71% died that is in 2011. However at the horn of Africa and in North Africa people have lower prevalence rates of HIV since they do not engage in too much cultural patterns that may put them at a risk. Still if one gets HIV/AIDS is also at a risk of being infected with malaria. This paper will give an account of HIV/AIDS and malaria co-infection in Africa. Mechanisms of how malaria affects HIV transmission and mechanisms of immunological progression Malaria-induced changes in the viral load leads to several immunological mechanisms like P. falciparum infection promotes CD4+ and macrophages cells to cause active viral transcription. Distribution of HIV/AID and malaria in Africa Both HIV and malaria have similar global distributions but Africans are the most affected. Having an overlap of their geographic distribution and high rates of co-infections the two diseases have become a major public health decision. The diseases contribute to poverty by affecting those who should be contributing to local economy. The rate of this co-infection is highest in areas that have high prevalence of HIV and unstable transmission of malaria. Effects of HIV and malaria co-infection Malaria infection causes an increase of the plasma HIV viral load even at asymptomatic parasitemia. Thus it is clear that around 3 million malaria cases and 65,000 malaria-related deaths are as a result of HIV. In some countries, HIV-co-infected women have higher rates of antenatal malaria than those that are not infected. References Alemu, A., Shiferaw, Y., Addis, Z., Mathewos, B., & Birhan, W. (2013). Effect of malaria on HIV/AIDS transmission and progression. Parasites & vectors, 6(1), 18. Parpia, A. S., Ndeffo-Mbah, M. L., Wenzel, N. S., & Galvani, A. P. (2016). Effects of response to 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak on deaths from Malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis, West Africa. Emerging infectious diseases, 22(3), 433. Barley, K., Murillo, D., Roudenko, S., Tameru, A. M., & Tatum, S. (2012). A mathematical model of hiv and malaria co-infection in sub-saharan africa. Journal of AIDS and Clinical Research, 3(7), 1-7.