In “Chanda’s Secrets”, by Allan Stratton, the topic of focus is HIV/AIDS. A book I have recently read relating to this one is “The Samurai’s Garden”, by Gail Tsukiyama about tuberculosis. Despite the fact that HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis would seem like very different diseases, they are actually pretty similar. HIV/AIDS is a rare opportunistic infection that does not have a cure. It is a chronic condition that spreads through varying kinds of contact. Meanwhile tuberculosis is a rare infectious bacterial disease that has a cure and can be prevented. It is a medium-term condition that spreads through airborne droplets. You wouldn’t think that one third of all people living with HIV are infected with the tuberculosis bacteria, but together, HIV …show more content…
Around 35% of the deaths among HIV/AIDS patients were associated with tuberculosis. HIV/AIDS has killed roughly 35 million people in 100 years, whereas tuberculosis has killed around 1 billion people in 200 years. Symptoms of HIV/AIDS can include abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, persistent and/or watery diarrhea, oral thrush, white tongue, soreness of the throat, difficulty and/or pain while swallowing, dry cough, ulcers, sores, red blotches, skin rash, pneumonia, opportunistic infection, swelling, and headache. Although symptoms are not always present, symptoms of tuberculosis may include chest pain, pain while breathing, shortness of breath, chronic and/or bloody cough, phlegm, loss of muscle, and chills. Related symptoms of the diseases are fatigue, malaise, night sweats, sweating, loss of appetite, severe unintentional weight loss, fever, and swollen lymph nodes. To treat HIV/AIDS, one would receive antiretroviral regimens to slow down the progression of the disease’s development. Antiretroviral regimens can also prevent secondary infections and complications. In the book, this method of treatment would not have been available as this is a new course of treatment, and the characters in my book wouldn’t have been able to afford