Ending the AIDS pandemic
Personajes:
Tema: Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD)
Competencias
Competencia en Comunicación Lingüística
Competencia Matemática, en ciencia, tecnología e ingeniería
Competencia Personal, social y de aprender a aprender
Competencia Ciudadana
Materias y cursos por Sistema Educativo
España > Biología y Geología > 1º ESO > Hábitos saludables
España > Biología y Geología > 3º ESO > Hábitos saludables
Enunciado
AIDS is a disease caused by a virus (HIV) that can be transmitted by different ways, one of them being sexual transmission.
AIDS is a disease that affects our immune system, and there is no cure for it: there are only treatments that keep it more or less under control.
So far, there is no vaccine against AIDS, and the disease is a pandemic, although, as can be seen in the image, it affects different areas of the world unevenly.
At present, the only form of effective protection against the disease is the use of condoms, but these are not always accessible to the population.
Teresa Gonzalo Lázaro is a Spanish scientist who has developed a gel that can be used topically in the vagina to protect against the virus, without the need to use condoms.
Proposed questions for discussion:
1. Is HIV the same as AIDS?
2. What part of our body is affected by this disease?
What external signs can let us know that a person has AIDS? 4.
4. Why does it affect more in different areas of the world? Which areas are most affected?
5. In which parts of the world do you think AIDS patients have a better quality of life? Does this coincide with the number of patients?
6. What advantages does the method developed by Teresa Gonzalo Lázaro have?
7. Teresa Gonzalo is not only an important scientist, but also has studies in business management, what relation does this have with the topic discussed?
Observaciones y contexto
There is a long tradition of women throughout history, with extraordinary knowledge about the healing power of plants and their medicinal uses, and it was they who provided the first pharmaceutical, hygienic and medical care. There are figures such as Hildegard of Bingen, abbess of the 12th century who, among many other texts, wrote "Causes and solutions", a medical text with recommendations and medicinal uses for different diseases. In Spain, despite the difficulties for women to access the University (Concepción Arenal, in 1841, went to the Faculty of Law dressed as a man, in order to attend the class), there are data on women graduates in pharmacy since the nineteenth century. In the 1930s, the female quota in the Official College of Pharmacists of Madrid reached 25% of the total membership. There were Josefa Bonald (Madrid, 1893), who registered fourteen medicines between 1923 and 1935, or Rosa Martín de Antonio (Guadalajara, 1891), affiliated to the Republican Party and exiled to Venezuela during the civil war. Teresa Gonzalo Lázaro belongs to a new generation of pharmacists who, like many of her predecessors, has managed to develop a substance, a gel, of great interest for women's health, as it prevents the spread of HIV.
Descripción
-Discussion activity on HIV and its global incidence. There is an image and a small text, and some suggestions of questions and answers for discussion are presented.
-It is interesting to work not only on the biological aspect of the disease treated, but also on the social aspect of the subject, and of the initiative presented by Teresa Gonzalez.
-This activity has several objectives: to understand the social implications of the AIDS pandemic, within the biological context and its method of transmission; to assimilate the usual form of protection against the disease, the social and gender implication that this form has, and to understand the social implications of the form of protection discovered by Teresa Gonzalo Lázaro.
Observations:
-The activity is designed to be done orally, to generate debate and reflection in our students.
-It is an open activity, where according to needs we can direct the debate towards different aspects of those raised in the initial questions.