Signs of STD

December 1 is observed as World AIDS Day across the world. The day, as the name suggests, is to show support for people living with HIV and the ones who have lost their lives because of AIDS. The theme of World AIDS Day 2021 is 'End inequalities. End AIDS.' With a special focus on reaching people left behind, WHO and its partners are highlighting the growing inequalities in access to essential HIV services. The day was first marked in 1988 and was also the first-ever international day for global health. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a chronic disease that is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The immune system of the person who is suffering from the disease gets damaged and also reduces the disease fighting ability of the body. There are various reasons through which a person can be affected by AIDS. Let's take a look at some of them: 1. It can be contracted through body fluids like blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid, vaginal and rectal fluids, an...

HIV, human immunodeficiency syndrome, affects every community differently, and, in the United States, people of color are disproportionately affected. This is true of the Latinx community, which accounts for 24% of all new HIV infections despite representing only 18% of the U.S. population. Compared to Whites in the United States, Hispanic/Latinx people are four times more likely to get HIV and two to three times more likely to die as a result of the disease. Higher rates of poverty, unequal access to healthcare, and racism largely account for the disparity. FG Trade / Getty Images Despite significant reductions in the rates of infections since 2015, rates remain high among Latinx men who have sex with men (MSM), who account for nearly nine of every 10 new infections among Latinx men. Aggressive interventions by the federal government aim to reverse this trend by 2030, with hopes of cutting the HIV infection rate among Latinx people by no less tha...

Genital gonorrhea can be diagnosed in a number of ways. A urine sample can be used to test for genital gonorrhea in people of any anatomy. A urethral swab may be used to test for genital gonorrhea in penis-havers. An endocervical or vaginal swab may be used to test for genital gonorrhea in vagina-havers. You can use a mouth or throat swab to test for oral gonorrhea. An anal or rectal swab can be used to test for anal gonorrhea. Gonorrhea, also known as "the clap" or "the drip," is a bacterial sexuality transmitted infection (STI) caused by the Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacterium. It can target moist areas of the body, including the genitals, rectum, throat, uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, and eyes. Like other STIs, gonorrhea doesn't appear *poof* out of nowhere. Instead, it's transmitted when a person without gonorrhea comes into contact with the site where a person who is gonorrhea-positive has gonorrhea. If, for example, person A has throat gonorrhea and goe...

The term "patient zero" generally refers to a person identified as the initial carrier of an infectious disease in an outbreak of related cases. It is difficult to identify patient zero in the case of HIV, as many individuals may have carried the infection before doctors understood the disease. For many years, one man was named patient zero and incorrectly blamed for spreading HIV across the United States. However, more recent evidence has determined that HIV was present in the U.S. before this time. This individual was simply one of the thousands who contracted the virus early on in the epidemic. Keep reading to learn more about HIV patient zero and what we know about the origins of this virus. HIV is a virus that attacks and weakens the body's immune system. Therefore, individuals living with HIV are more susceptible to other diseases and infections. HIV spreads through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids. The two most common ways it spreads are through ...

It is common to wonder whether the color or consistency of vaginal discharge is normal or needs to be checked out. Vaginal discharge can be many colors, and several indicate a healthy body. In this article, we provide a color-coded guide to vaginal discharge. Learn what the colors mean and when to see a doctor. Vaginal discharge is fluid secreted from tiny glands in the vagina and cervix. This fluid leaks from the vagina each day to remove old cells and debris, keeping the vagina and reproductive tract clean and healthy. The amount of vaginal discharge can vary significantly from person to person. The color, consistency, and amount can also change from day to day, depending on where a person is in their menstrual cycle: Days 1–5 . At the beginning of the cycle, discharge is usually red or bloody, as the body sheds the uterine lining. Days 6–14 . Following a period, a person may notice less vaginal discharge than usual. As the egg starts to develop and mature, the cervical mucus will be...

Pre-exposure prophylaxis or "PrEP," a once-daily pill that prevents HIV transmission, has been a game changer for HIV and has helped put the United States on a path to end new HIV infections nationwide. However, PrEP has also exposed the instability of HIV public health financing and its outsized reliance on pharmaceutical manufacturers to prop up not only medication access programs but the basic fabric of the HIV workforce.  The first anti-retroviral medication for the prevention of HIV was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2012. It is sold under the brand name Truvada and manufactured by the pharmaceutical behemoth, Gilead Sciences. As the patent end date for a key ingredient in Truvada approached, Gilead won FDA approval for a second formulation for PrEP, Descovy, in late 2019. Descovy's greatest clinical potential is for a small subset of individuals who cannot tolerate Truvada. Both drugs are safe and highly effective when used as recom...

At the beginning of this year, I laid out a basic objective for Endpoints News as we headed to our 5th anniversary. We've long been doing a fine job covering the breaking news in R&D — if I do say so myself — but we needed to expand our horizons on industry coverage, increase the staff and go much, much deeper when the stories demanded it. In a phrase: broader and deeper. It's safe to say, based on our daily web traffic, that you all seemed to like this idea. We've doubled the staff — thanks to a growing group of paid subscribers — ramped up the daily report and now publish a regular slate of in-depth articles. And traffic — those clicks you always read about — have gone up in volume too. Monthly sessions are up 43%, to close to 1.5 million. Unique readers are up 63%, to 874,480 in October, after setting a record of close to a million the month before. Page views are running at 3 million-plus a month. And the overall number of subscribers has surged to 124,000....

Most of the time you go to the restroom and the pee that comes out is… well, hardly notable. But then there are other days when the urine flows and your nose immediately picks up a certain funkiness. Advertising Policy Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services. Policy Consider it a whiff of information, as the smell of your urine can offer important insight as to what's happening inside your body. Let's learn how to sniff out the clues with urologist Petar Bajic, MD. What makes urine smell? For the most part, urine carries very little odor. The reason why is simple: It's about 95% water. The remainder amounts mostly to waste products — calcium, nitrogen, potassium and more — filtered by your kidneys. Now if you're dehydrated, the percentage of water in your ...

In certain circles of San Francisco, a case of syphilis can be as common and casual as the flu, to the point where Billy Lemon can't even remember how many times he's had it. "Three or four? Five times in my life?" he struggles to recall. "It does not seem like a big deal." At the time, about a decade ago, Lemon went on frequent methamphetamine binges, kicking his libido into overdrive and silencing the voice in his head that said condoms would be a wise choice at a raging sex party. "It lowers your inhibitions, and also your decision-making abilities are skewed," said Lemon, who is 50. He's sober now and runs the Castro Country Club in San Francisco — which is not a resort, but a place where gay men come to get help with addiction, especially meth. Lemon said syphilis comes with the territory. "In the 12-step community, if meth was your thing, everybody had syphi...