AIDS Overview

AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. The human immune deficiency virus (HIV) is the causative agent for this grave disease of the humans. This virus remains silent; without any external symptoms, and destroys the body’s immune system over time, until the body is unable to fight. The main targets are the CD4 cells that protect the body from various infections and illnesses. Once the defense is down, it manifests itself, bringing with it a great load of various infections and conditions, against which, the immune system cannot protect the body anymore.

Man is the soul carrier and transmitter of this virus. It requires the medium of body fluids for transmission and can spread from person to person through sexual contact, infusion of infected blood, sharing of needles by drug addicts, etc. Around half of the people affected are in their productive years belonging to the under 25 age group.

AIDS is one of the leading causes of deaths worldwide and the number one cause of death in Africa. According to the U.S Global Health Policy, there are approximately 34 million current cases and nearly 30 million reported deaths due to AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic. The majority of the patients belong to the developing and underdeveloped countries particularly in the sub-Saharan Africa. Patients in these countries do not have an access to preventive measures, treatments and care. This disease not only affects the health, it also has a major impact on the community and the economic growth and development of the nations. In spite of these challenges, constant efforts are being made to combat this epidemic and they have shown improvements and have helped lower the incidence and mortality rates; a significant contribution towards the path to stabilization. In addition to this, the number of patients receiving treatment has greatly increased from 400,100 in 2003 to 8million in 2011. This lowered the death rates to 1.7 million reported deaths in 2011, causing a 24% decrease in mortality since 2005.

Recent research has shown that providing AIDS treatment to the patients significantly lowers the risk of the chances of transmission to their partners who are unaffected. A therapy known as antiretroviral-therapy (ART) is used to attack the virus and to prevent and attack the many opportunistic infections that the patients fall victim to. ART has been found to reduce the risk of this disease in women. HAART is another form of therapy that is highly effective; it improves the functioning of the immune system and considerably increases the life expectancy and should be continued for life. The virus may start to show resistance to this therapy in some cases. In spite of all the treatments available, there is still no absolute cure for AIDS and this matter is probably one of the biggest dilemmas of the field of medical science. Various research projects are being conducted in order to develop a successful vaccine.

Numerous preventive campaigns and interventions exist to help fight the incidence of AIDS. Prevention strategies that have proven effective include, screening the population at risk, blood supply safety, promotion of usage of condoms, male circumcision, behavior change programs, preventing the addicts from injecting drugs and providing rehabilitation. A combination of prevention strategies is recommended by the experts. However, the preventive measures remain at a limited access in the low socio-economic regions due to limited resources and lack of education.