First of all, AIDS is caused by the retrovirus HIV. HIV stands for human immunodef-
iciency virus. AIDS itself stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. As its name implies, AIDS is a virus that is acquired and attacks the immune system making it useless in the event of other viral or bacterial attacks on the human body. After the HIV virus is initially contracted, the person may live a perfectly normal life for several years before sign of the virus appear. At this time, these persons develop symptoms knows as AIDS-related complex or ARC. Its symptoms include persistent fever, fatigue, weakness, malaise, weight loss, and abnormally low numbers of helper T cells. These ARC symptoms may disappear and come back, but more often than not, these symptoms lead up to the serious syndrome of AIDS. Studies have shown that the risk of developing ARC and AIDS increases steadily over the years after a person has first been infected with the HIV-1 virus. As an AIDS patient’s immune system deteriorates because of HIV-1, he tends to develop a variety of recurrent or chronic infections. These infections are normally harmless to people with healthy immune systems, but are very dangerous to AIDS patients. In the third stage of AIDS, the patients helper T cell count is down to a very dangerous level. Here, common illnesses that are normally easily defeated such as pneumonia and tumors are deadly to an AIDS patient. He may also suffer from a mental illness known as dementia. After this stage, there is little hope left for a patient. Frequent illness persists and diseases that were extinct for long periods of time flare up in this unhealthy immune system. Always, the cause is death. It should be noted however that the AIDS virus itself does not cause death. Death is caused by the body’s inability to defend itself against other invading virii.
As said earlier, AIDS is caused by the virus HIV-1. This virus is a single strand of
RNA which travels in the blood. HIV-1 is a communicable disease, however it is not contracted from everyday contact. Outside of the body, HIV-1 dies quickly and does not affect other people. Once in the bloodstream however, this virus attacks the immune system. HIV-1 can be spread through blood and bodily fluids. Most affected are those who practice unprotected sex and intravenous drugs. An infected person who uses a needle can spread the disease from his blood to other’s blood. Sex is also another way to exchange the virus. HIV-1 can also be passed from a mother to her fetus before childbirth. Before better sanitation methods arose, the virus could be spread through blood transfusions. Awareness of the virus has prompted more secure methods and hence the virus is not likely to be spread through blood donations or transfusions. Despite myth, the AIDS virus cannot be spread through kissing, sneezing, sweating or touching an infected person.
The AIDS virus is a fatal disease. There is not currently a cure to totally defeat the
virus. Modern medicine has however found ways to slow its affects. There currently exist drugs that can boost the number of helper T cells in a patients body. There are also drugs which can impede the AIDS virus from infecting more and more T cells and help to strengthen the immune system. That is all drugs can do though. They cannot stop it, only slow it. In the first stages the drugs are very successful and the patient is kept in relatively good health. In the final stages however, drugs are almost completely unsuccessful and the only thing that can be done for a patient is to make him comfortable with easing drugs. The drug azidothymidine has proved very useful in the war against AIDS. Scientists all over the globe are currently working on a cure for AIDS and perhaps one day they will succeed.
All these symptoms, causes, and treatments describe the deadly AIDS virus. AIDS
is a fatal disease which renders the body helpless against other diseases. Patients lose the ability to defend themselves against virii and die from infections. AIDS is caused by the HIV-1 virus which is transferred to the body through blood and other bodily fluids. There is currently no cure for AIDS, but treatments do exist which can slow the progress of AIDS. Now that you know all this about AIDS, don’t you really feel like you need to be more careful out in the world?
