Since the first cases of AIDS surfaced in 1981, the disease has killed more than 400,000 people in the United States and almost 13.9 million men, women and children worldwide. The epidemic has changed the lives of friends, families, lovers. It has devastated communities. And it has spurred AIDS activists to fight for compassion, support services, and effective treatments.
When the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) enters your body, it weakens your natural defenses and makes you vulnerable to a collection of potentially deadly diseases and infections called AIDS. Currently there is no cure for HIV disease. However, an unprecedented number of researchers are working on both treatments and vaccines. New drug therapies give tremendous hope to many people living with HIV and AIDS, often prolonging and improving their lives.
AIDS is a hard disease to get; it’s not spread by casual contact. You can keep from getting HIV by using a latex condom during intercourse — or abstaining from sex — and by not sharing needles.
Abbreviations of Condition
- AIDS: acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
- HIV: human immunodeficiency virus
Detailed Description
The HIV virus is not in itself deadly. The problem comes when the virus weakens and eventually depletes the immune system, allowing infections to take hold. It attaches itself to and destroys white blood cells (CD4 lymphocytes, also known as helper T cells), an essential component of the immune system. As the virus depletes the T cells, your body becomes increasingly susceptible to an array of other infections and diseases.
Currently, AIDS is incurable. There is good news, however, in the form of protease inhibitors, a new class of drugs that helps keep HIV in check. Protease inhibitors helped cut the number of U.S. AIDS deaths by almost half from 1996 to 1997. As a result, AIDS dropped from the eighth leading cause of death in the United States to the 14th. But the steep decline in U.S. AIDS deaths seems to have reached a plateau. And AIDS continues to be a scourge in Africa, parts of Asia, and Latin America. In fact, nine of every 10 cases of AIDS are in the developing world.
HIV can lie dormant for years. Although HIV infection and its progression to AIDS is generally a slow process, HIV can develop at an extremely variable rate; it can take less than five years, or as long as 15 years, to progress to AIDS. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) defines AIDS as one of more than 20 diseases occurring in an individual with no known cause of decreased resistance to the disease. These diseases usually do not develop until the T-cell blood count drops below 200 (in healthy adults, normal T-cell blood count is 800 to 1,300). Some of the more common AIDS-defining illnesses include:
- Pneumoncystis carinii pneumonia (PCP)
- Candidal esophagitis, esophagitis from herpes simplex or cytomegalovirus
- Cryptosporidiosis infection of the intestine for more than four weeks
- Primary lymphoma of the brain
- Kaposi’s sarcoma
- Herpes simplex ulcers, extensive in location, lasting for more than one month
- Toxoplasmosis of the brain