HIV/AIDS is a national pandemic that affects all people in the society. The disease has different social effects on population. One of the social effects of HIV/AIDS is that it causes stigmatization from members of the society. Societies perceive people suffering from the disease as immoral because they believe that many people contract the disease through sexual intercourse (Brock, 2008, p. 379). There are both long- and short-term effects that face people ailing from HIV/AIDS.
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One of the long-term effects of children suffering from the disease include seclusion from the other children, which may affect them psychologically in their entire lives. Short term effects include frequent illnesses and treatments that may cost huge sums of money. Long-term effects on women include society stigmatization, loneliness and psychological effects (David, Lindy & Ingrid, 2010, p. 15). Short term effects include low self-esteem and conflicts that may arise between the families. Long-term effects on women include stigmatization by the society and psychological effects. Short-term effects include reduced productivity at work, sicknesses such as tuberculosis among many others. The effects are likewise similar among the elderly people suffering from the disease.
Once an individual contracts this disease, the body reacts in different ways. Various factors contribute to how an individual reacts to an infection. These factors include age, gender, mode of transmission and co-infections among many others. For example, when a person with the virus avoids sexual intercourse with people with the disease, he/she may live longer than those who engage in sexual intercourse. The rationale to explain this is that different people have different strains of the virus and when such virus enters the body, they weaken the white blood cells at a faster rate (Blumenreich, & Siegel, 2006, p. 81).
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