Aids/HIV information, Symptoms, treatment

During the emergence of AIDS, uncertainty over how it was spread created a tidal wave of fear and misinformation. Today we know how HIV is transmitted and how to avoid it.

The most accepted medical practices for avoiding HIV infection are:
Abstaining from sex
Using latex condoms for sexual intercourse
Using dental dams (thin squares of latex) for oral-vaginal or oral-anal contact
Using spermicidal jelly containing nonoxynol-9
Avoiding sharing needles
Avoiding unscreened blood products
Avoiding the blood of people with HIV
Self-Care Measures
Be kind to your body. Don’t depress your immune system by drinking alcohol, smoking, or overindulging in junk foods and sugary snacks.
Eat frequently, making sure to maintain adequate caloric intake. Use a food supplement, for example, Ensure, if you begin to lose weight.
Eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains. At the University of California, Berkeley, researchers followed the diets of 296 HIV-positive men for six years. Those who ate the most fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains had the best immune function throughout the study and were least likely to progress to full-blown-AIDS.
Get a flu shot every fall.
Get plenty of rest.
Maintain good oral hygiene. Visit your dentist regularly. Avoid commercially available mouthwashes — their high sugar and alcohol content may irritate the mouth and provide an ideal environment for infectious microorganisms.
Do your best to avoid colds and other illnesses. Before get-togethers, ask if anyone is ill. If so, reschedule.
Do not use IV drugs, unless prescribed by a physician.

HIV can be transmitted by:

• Unprotected sex
• Sharing of hypodermic needles for injection drug use
• From an HIV-infected mother to her baby, especially as the baby passes through the birth canal (the baby has a 25-30% chance of being HIV positive if not treated during pregnancy)
• Human breast milk
• Accidental needle sticks, which are a risk among healthcare workers (about a one in 300 chance)
• Blood transfusion and coagulation products (although this is very rare, with the modern blood-screening systems in use since 1985)

Male circumcision may help to avoid the risk of HIV infection   

Some scientific studies found that male circumcision may reduce the incidence of AIDS and reduce the spread, which may help to save the lives of millions of people. Results of the studies are cautiously optimistic and work is under way to ascertain the authenticity. The researchers from the World Health Organization that male circumcision on a regular basis throughout the African continent might prevent millions of deaths caused by HIV “AIDS”. The researchers analysed data testing indicated that men who have been circumcised are less vulnerable to HIV infection. Based on statistics leased researchers if it was circumcision of all men over the next ten years will enable it to avoid injuring two million men infected and to prevent the deaths of 300,000 others ill. The researchers believe that circumcision reduces the risk of infection because the foreskin penis, which cited covering the penis and cut off when circumcision, covered with cells that the virus can apparently penetrated easily. The virus also live in warm and humid climates, such as underwater foreskin The main reason for its spread is the sexual relationship. If male circumcision will be exposed to the infection few of them and therefore would not be transmitted infections them to their partners, according to studies.

 Lower rate of HIV infection among circumcised men

Several studies indicated that men who have been circumcised have a lower incidence of HIV Watch. No. In. This is very clear in some areas of Africa where some groups of male circumcision does not do so while other groups. In last year discovered Bertrand fled and the French National Agency for Research and his colleagues at the World Health Organization that male circumcision has been in South Africa at least 65 per cent risk of infection from the deadly virus peers who are not circumcised. Then abundance team then conducted an analysis to determine what would happen if the circumcision of all men in Africa. The researchers in the study, published in current issue of the periodical Public Library of Science Medicine, that in West Africa and cons of male circumcision reduced the spread of Craft. No. In. In North Africa while the inverted image in South Africa. The analysis shows that male circumcision can be a way to avoid some six million new infections and save the lives of three million people in sub-Saharan Africa over the next twenty years. Overall, the draft collective male circumcision will reduce the infection rate of 37 per cent.

Male circumcision and prevention for women!

The American and Ugandan researchers have gone to that male circumcision also assesses women with AIDS, apparently. Where they found that male circumcision reduced HIV disease by 30 per cent of their partners. In the study, conducted on more than 300 Ugandan couples who transferred the man whom infection disease for women, researchers found that 299 women were infected with HIV Watch. No. Partners in non-circumcised, whereas only 44 are HIV-woman only circumcised men. He said researchers at a conference on AIDS held in Denver beginning of this year that circumcision reduced the risk of infection as well as other diseases transmitted through sex. The researchers said it seemed evident among men infected with the disease that circumcision reduces the likelihood of transmission of the disease to others through sex. But there is still not clear whether it could disseminate the results of these studies to include gay men who spread the disease further in the mediation.

Cautious optimism

Although the researchers are early indications of these studies exciting and promising, but they say he must first confirmed before used as grounds for issuing recommendations. In this context, warned Kevin De Cock, director of the HIV WHO excess of optimism, pointing out that his organization has not yet issued binding recommendations in this regard pending the results of these studies by other studies depth. The international official betting on the two studies be conducted in both Kenya and Uganda are expected to be completed them in 2007. Experts warned that these studies lead to negative results. In this context, he fears Osama Hamouda, a researcher at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, to ignore some means of prevention such as using condoms when having sex based on the premise that circumcision prevents HIV transmission and therefore the results will be contrary to what looked to the researchers.