Question

Select a sexually transmitted infection (STI) and do research on it. Write a 3-5 page paper about the condition/issue. In the paper discuss the concepts below:

• What is the pathophysiology of one STI
• What is the etiology of the selected STI
• What are the clinical manifestations of the selected STI
• What is the treatment for the selected STI

I need 3 pages please , no less please

Answer 1

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are responsible for an enormous burden of morbidity and mortality in many developing countries because of their effects on reproductive and child health (Wasserheit 1989) and their role in facilitating the transmission of HIV infection (Laga, Diallo, and Buvé 1994).

Introduction
Largely because of the HIV epidemic, interest in STIs has increased over the past two decades. During that time, the epidemiology of STIs has changed in developing countries, partly as a result of modifications in STI case management approaches and partly because of behavioral changes in response to the HIV epidemic. At the same time, advances in STI prevention have enhanced understanding of the intricacies of STI transmission dynamics and the role of interventions in the control of STIs. However, what has not changed is as significant as what has changed: the epidemiology of STIs still differs substantially in the industrial countries and the developing world. The sociocultural and economic contexts in developing countries influence the epidemiology of STIs and help make them an important public health priority.

Incidence and prevalence rates of STIs are generally high in both urban and rural populations and vary considerably across areas. Because diagnosis and treatment of STIs are often delayed, inadequate, or both, rates of STI complications are also high in developing countries. Those complications include pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, and chronic abdominal pain in women; adverse pregnancy outcomes, including abortion, intrauterine death, and premature delivery; neonatal and infant infections and blindness in infants; infertility in both men and women; urethral strictures in men; genital malignancies, such as cancer of the cervix uteri, vulva, vagina, penis, and anus; arthritis secondary to gonorrhea and chlamydia; liver failure and liver cancer secondary to hepatitis B or human T cell lymphotropic virus type I; and central nervous system disease secondary to syphilis (Holmes and Aral 1991; Meheus, Schulz, and Cates 1990; van Dam, Dallabetta, and Piot 1999). Thus, STI sequelae affect mostly women and children.

In developing countries, high levels of STIs and high rates of complications and sequelae result largely from inadequacies in health service provision and health care seeking (Aral and Wasserheit 1999). STI care is provided by a large variety of health care providers, many of whom are poorly trained in STI case management, and the quality of care they provide is often less than desirable (Moses and others 1994; WHO 1991). Health care seeking for STIs is frequently inadequate, particularly among women (van Dam 1995), because of the low levels of awareness regarding sexual health, the stigmatization associated with genital symptoms, and the asymptomatic nature of many STIs. A study in Nairobi, Kenya, found that 42 percent of patients had been symptomatic for more than a week before coming to a clinic and that 23 percent had been symptomatic for more than two weeks (Moses and others 1994).

Setting up good-quality STI services is considerably more difficult in resource-poor settings than elsewhere. Variables that affect the duration of infectiousness include adequacy of health workers' training, attitudes of health workers toward such marginalized groups as sex workers, patient loads at health centers, availability of drugs and clinic supplies, and costs of care (Moses and others 2002). Thus, improvements pertaining to all these factors would greatly improve STI-related services, help reduce the duration of infectiousness, and decrease the incidence of STIs (Aral 2002a). However, in many countries in the developing world, worsened economic conditions and the increasing burden of HIV/AIDS have negatively affected these variables. For example, in South Africa, the ratio of hospital beds to population declined from 6.5 per 1,000 in 1976 to 2.3 in 1996; during 1999, approximately 300 professionally trained nurses left the country each month; and student enrollments in nursing school declined from 12,282 in 1996 to 10,398 in 1999 (Aral 2002a).

Sexual behaviors also contribute to the STI burden in developing countries. These behaviors are heavily influenced by the sociocultural, economic, and political contexts, which in the past two decades have deteriorated at an accelerated rate in many areas. Societal change has included rising levels of inequality within countries, growing inequality between countries, increased levels of globalization, increased proportions of people who live in cultures they were not born in, and a larger proportion of the world's population living in postconflict societies (Aral 2002a). One effect of these changes is an increase in multipartner sexual activity, which in turn increases the rate at which infected and susceptible individuals are sexually exposed to each other and consequently the rate at which STIs spread.

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are infections that spread from person to person through sexual activity, including anal, vaginal, or oral sex. HIV is an STD. Chlamydia, gonorrhea, human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, and syphilis are examples of other STDs. Having an STD can make it easier to get HIV.

Sexually transmitted disease
Also called: STD
Overview
An infection transmitted through sexual contact, caused by bacteria, viruses or parasites.
MOST COMMON TYPES
Human papillomavirus (HPV)
An infection that causes warts in various parts of the body, depending on the strain.
Genital herpes
A common sexually transmitted infection marked by genital pain and sores.
Chlamydia
A common, sexually transmitted infection that may not cause symptoms.
Gonorrhoea
A sexually transmitted bacterial infection that, if untreated, may cause infertility.
HIV/AIDS
HIV causes AIDS and interferes with the body's ability to fight infections.
Syphilis
A bacterial infection usually spread by sexual contact that starts as a painless sore.

HIV/AIDS
Also called: human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome

HIV causes AIDS and interferes with the body's ability to fight infections.
The virus can be transmitted through contact with infected blood, semen or vaginal fluids.
Common
More than 1 million cases per year (India)
Spreads by sexual contact
Treatment can help, but this condition can't be cured
Chronic: can last for years or be lifelong
Requires a medical diagnosis
Lab tests or imaging always required

HOW IT SPREADS
By blood products (unclean needles or unscreened blood).
By having unprotected vaginal, anal or oral sex.
By mother to baby by pregnancy, labour or nursing.

SYMPTOMS
Requires a medical diagnosis
Within a few weeks of HIV infection, flu-like symptoms such as fever, sore throat and fatigue can occur. Then the disease is usually asymptomatic until it progresses to AIDS. AIDS symptoms include weight loss, fever or night sweats, fatigue and recurrent infections.
People may experience:
Pain areas: in the abdomen
Pain circumstances: can occur while swallowing
Cough: can be dry
Whole body: fatigue, fever, loss of appetite, malaise, night sweats, or sweating
Gastrointestinal: nausea, persistent diarrhoea, vomiting, or watery diarrhoea
Throat: difficulty swallowing or soreness
Groin: sores or swelling
Mouth: ulcers or white tongue
Also common: opportunistic infection, headache, oral thrush, pneumonia, red blotches, severe unintentional weight loss, skin rash, or swollen lymph nodes

Treatment consists of HIV antivirals
No cure exists for AIDS, but strict adherence to antiretroviral regimens (ARVs) can dramatically slow the disease's progress as well as prevent secondary infections and complications.

What Is HIV Treatment?
HIV treatment involves taking medicines that slow the progression of the virus in your body. HIV is a type of virus called a retrovirus, and the combination of drugs used to treat it is called antiretroviral therapy (ART). ART is recommended for all people living with HIV, regardless of how long they’ve had the virus or how healthy they are. ART must be taken every day, exactly as your health care provider prescribes.

Why Is HIV Treatment Important?
Getting and staying on HIV treatment because it reduces the amount of HIV in your blood (also called the viral load) to a very low level. This keeps you healthy and prevents illness. There is also a major prevention benefit. People living with HIV who take HIV medication daily as prescribed and get and keep an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting HIV to their HIV-negative partners. This is called treatment as prevention.

If left untreated, HIV attacks your immune system and can allow different types of life-threatening infections and cancers to develop. If your CD4 cell count falls below a certain level, you are at risk of getting an opportunistic infection. These are infections that don’t normally affect people with healthy immune systems but that can infect people with immune systems weakened by HIV infection. Your health care provider may prescribe medicines to prevent certain infections.

HIV treatment is most likely to be successful when you know what to expect and are committed to taking your medicines exactly as prescribed. Working with your health care provider to develop a treatment plan will help you learn more about HIV and manage it effectively.

When Should You Start HIV Treatment?
Treatment guidelines from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommend that a person living with HIV begin ART as soon as possible after diagnosis. Starting ART slows the progression of HIV and can keep you healthy for many years.

If you delay treatment, the virus will continue to harm your immune system and put you at higher risk for developing opportunistic infections that can be life threatening.

What Is HIV Drug Resistance?
Drug resistance can be a cause of treatment failure for people living with HIV. As HIV multiplies in the body, it sometimes mutates (changes form) and produces variations of itself. Variations of HIV that develop while a person is taking ART can lead to drug-resistant strains of HIV.

With drug resistance, HIV medicines that previously controlled a person’s HIV are not effective against new, drug-resistant HIV. In other words, the HIV medicines can't prevent the drug-resistant HIV from multiplying. Drug resistance can cause HIV treatment to fail.

A person can initially be infected with drug-resistant HIV or develop drug-resistant HIV after starting HIV medicines. Drug-resistant HIV also can spread from person to person. Drug-resistance testing identifies which, if any, HIV medicines won’t be effective against your specific strain of HIV. Drug-resistance testing results help determine which HIV medicines to include in an HIV treatment regimen.

Taking HIV medication every day, exactly as prescribed helps prevent drug resistance

PATHOPHYSIOLOGY
HIV is commonly transmitted via unprotected sexual activity, blood transfusions, hypodermic needles, and from mother to child. Upon acquisition of the virus, the virus replicates inside and kills T helper cells, which are required for almost all adaptive immune responses. There is an initial period of influenza-like illness, and then a latent, asymptomatic phase. When the CD4 lymphocyte count falls below 200 cells/ml of blood, the HIV host has progressed to AIDS,[1] a condition characterized by deficiency in cell-mediated immunity and the resulting increased susceptibility to opportunistic infections and certain forms of cancer.