Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), human viral disease that ravages the immune system, undermining the body’s ability to defend itself from infection and disease. Caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), AIDS leaves an infected person vulnerable to opportunistic infections—infection by microbes that take advantage of a weakened immune system. Such infections are usually harmless in healthy people but can prove life-threatening to people with AIDS. Although there is no cure for AIDS, new drugs are available that can prolong the life spans and improve the quality of life of infected people.
Transmission of HIV—the AIDS-causing virus—occurs most commonly as a result of sexual intercourse. HIV also can be transmitted through transfusions of HIV-contaminated blood or by using a contaminated needle or syringe to inject drugs into the bloodstream. Infection with HIV does not necessarily mean that a person has AIDS. Some people who have HIV infection may not develop any of the clinical illnesses that define the full-blown disease of AIDS for ten years or more. Physicians prefer to use the term AIDS for cases where a person has reached the final, life-threatening stage of HIV infection.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Treating AIDS
I'm one of the lucky ones,” said Mark Harrington in June 1998, describing his body's response to a potent combination of three anti-AIDS drugs before thousands of delegates in Geneva, Switzerland, at the 12th World AIDS Conference. Harrington, an American AIDS activist, became infected in 1985 with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). He began taking the drugs in 1996. “There can be little question that my immune system is much better, and my health stronger, than it was in 1996,” he told the assembled delegates.
Harrington's story illustrates the enormous progress made in treating people living with HIV and the infection's late stage, AIDS. But Harrington is lucky: The vast majority of HIV-infected people across the globe live in developing countries, where access to sophisticated medical care and costly medications is far beyond the reach of nearly all of those infected.
Another conference delegate, Rubarima Ruranga, a major in the Ugandan army and an AIDS activist who has lived with HIV for 13 years, painted a starkly contrasting picture. In Uganda nearly 2 million of the country's 20 million people are infected with HIV. Despite a public health budget of only about $8 per person, Uganda has one of Africa's most effective AIDS prevention programs. But even if pharmaceutical firms substantially lower the cost of their anti-AIDS drugs, as some have agreed to do, the country's meager resources could not be stretched to provide these medications for all of its HIV-infected citizens, Ruranga said
Harrington's story illustrates the enormous progress made in treating people living with HIV and the infection's late stage, AIDS. But Harrington is lucky: The vast majority of HIV-infected people across the globe live in developing countries, where access to sophisticated medical care and costly medications is far beyond the reach of nearly all of those infected.
Another conference delegate, Rubarima Ruranga, a major in the Ugandan army and an AIDS activist who has lived with HIV for 13 years, painted a starkly contrasting picture. In Uganda nearly 2 million of the country's 20 million people are infected with HIV. Despite a public health budget of only about $8 per person, Uganda has one of Africa's most effective AIDS prevention programs. But even if pharmaceutical firms substantially lower the cost of their anti-AIDS drugs, as some have agreed to do, the country's meager resources could not be stretched to provide these medications for all of its HIV-infected citizens, Ruranga said
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