Although millions were hoping that the turn of the century would lead to advances in the fight against AIDS, it has only gotten worse. AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The disease comes from the infection of the HIV or Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
After being infected with HIV, it typically takes ten years for the disease and symptoms to spiral into AIDS. HIV attacks the immune system which protects us from other sicknesses. Once immunity is lost, the body is weakened and unable to fight off other infections on its own.
The specific cell known as CD4 lymphocyte is attacked and destroyed by the HIV virus. This cell is what helps the body fight off other infections. Over time, people with AIDS may die from a disease that wouldn’t normally kill someone, but because they have no immune system, their body cannot fight it off.
It is believed the disease came from chimpanzees in the 1930s through a hunting incident in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The term AIDS was not introduced until the early 1980s. It was then that 5 homosexual men with pneumonia could not fight off the disease. It was first thought that the disease may have been linked to homosexuality; however, it became apparent that the disease was prevalent in heterosexuals that the disease was labeled AIDS.
The HIV virus was not isolated until 1983 by a doctor in Paris and it was later confirmed by Robert Gallo of the US Cancer Institute.
AIDS is currently a pandemic, meaning over 40 million people are living with HIV. Approximately 25 million people have died since the early 1980s as a result of AIDS.
Also, in 2005 alone, more than 2.8 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses.
Of that 2.8 million, 570,000 were children.
Not only that, but 4.1 million people were also newly infected with HIV in the past year.
The region with the strongest proportion of the AIDS virus is the Sub-Saharan Africa. In this region there are 21-28 million people suffering with AIDS, making up 64% of the world’s population.
Eastern Europe and Asia also have an increasing rate of AIDS victims.
Ukraine and Russia in particular have a large number of those suffering with AIDS, and India has just recently topped South Africa as the country with the highest number within its borders.
Western cultures, including the US, the UK and Western Europe seem to have a more stabilized rate of growth; however there are rises in the gay community in particular.
The virus is passed through blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk.
The most common method of transmission is unprotected sex with an infected person.
HIV also commonly crosses from mother to infant through childbirth and breastfeeding.
Sharing needles is the next most common way of getting HIV.
The infection cannot be spread through touching, hugging or coughing.
There is currently no cure for AIDS, although scientists have been researching for 25 years in hopes of finding one. There have of course been great advances in treatment including Haart, which is a daily assortment of drugs. This method stabilizes symptoms.
The medicine has basically extended the life limit of AIDS victims.
The first international World Aids Day was held in 1988.
There are some grounds for hope, the new rate of infections seems to have stabilized in many countries including 6 of the 11 most highly affected African nations.
Bill Gates has also pledged $287 million to try to speed up the development of a vaccine.
The bad news is the drugs which are said to stabilize the disease are very expensive; sufferers in impoverished nations have little hope of access.
Only 1 in 5 have access to the drugs to fight the disease.
Also, there are still millions who are completely ignorant of how the disease is spread. While it may be common knowledge in America, many countries are under the spell of myths; some of those myths actually lead to the spread of AIDS rather than the prevention of it.
The biggest thing that needs to happen is a heightened awareness of the devastating effects of the disease as well as how it is spread. This kind of awareness will not happen overnight, however, the reduction of poverty and an increase in education would certainly help many African nations. Also, in nations such as Thailand and Ukraine, the red light district is what brings in much of their tourism. Because prostitution is basically legal in such nations, AIDS rears its ugly head without much effort.
It is vastly important that all citizens are aware of how this disease is spread, and that it kills. Because there is no cure, the only sure cure is abstinence from sexual partners who may be infected, as well as abstaining from any type of needle use that isn’t sterile.
The most devastating part of this disease is probably the millions of children that have been orphaned and infected by the disease. They were born with little hope. Hundreds of orphanages exist with infected orphans who never really got a chance.
