Related topics: hiv
AIDS
hideAcquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
This condition progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors. HIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk.
This transmission can involve anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.
AIDS is now a pandemic. In 2007, it was estimated that 33.2 million people lived with the disease worldwide, and that AIDS had killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children. Over three-quarters of these deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, retarding economic growth and destroying human capital.
Genetic research indicates that HIV originated in west-central Africa during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. AIDS was first recognized by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981 and its cause, HIV, identified in the early 1980s.
Although treatments for AIDS and HIV can slow the course of the disease, there is currently no vaccine or cure. Antiretroviral treatment reduces both the mortality and the morbidity of HIV infection, but these drugs are expensive and routine access to antiretroviral medication is not available in all countries. Due to the difficulty in treating HIV infection, preventing infection is a key aim in controlling the AIDS pandemic, with health organizations promoting safe sex and needle-exchange programmes in attempts to slow the spread of the virus.
For more information about AIDS, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with aids
Many pregnant women avoid HIV screening in Africa
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Nov 19, 2009 |
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'Prevention is the best cure' is a common expression, but what happens if preventative measures are not used? A large proportion of pregnant Ugandan women are going out of their way not to be HIV tested, increasing the risk ...
Immediate, aggressive spending on HIV/AIDS could end epidemic
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Nov 18, 2009 |
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Money available to treat HIV/AIDS is sufficient to end the epidemic globally, but only if we act immediately to control the spread of the disease. That was the conclusion of a study just published in the open-access journal, ...
Research calls for better assessment of tests for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria
Nov 17, 2009 |
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A rapid and accurate diagnosis is the first step towards treatment in the fight against infectious disease. However, a team headed by Dr. Madhukar Pai at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) ...
Shape of things to come: Structure of HIV coat could lead to new drugs
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Nov 12, 2009 |
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Structural biologists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have described the architecture of the complex of protein units that make up the coat surrounding the HIV genome and identified in it a "seam" of functional ...
Hoping for a fluorescent basket case: How HIV is assembled and released from infected cells
Nov 12, 2009 |
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Although recent advances have raised hopes that a protective vaccine can be developed, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) remains a major public health problem. Much has been learned about HIV-1, the virus that causes ...
No-entry zones for AIDS virus
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Nov 12, 2009 |
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The AIDS virus inserts its genetic material into the genome of the infected cell. Scientists of the German Cancer Research Center have now shown for the first time that the virus almost entirely spares particular ...
New Way To Predict Drug Side Effects
Nov 11, 2009 |
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Predicting the side-effects of a drug is not simple task. The human body has more than 1,500 molecules that are known to be involved in various diseases, and often a drug designed to hit one of these targets will also hit ...
WHO: AIDS leading cause of death, disease in women
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Nov 09, 2009 |
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(AP) -- In its first study of women's health around the globe, the World Health Organization said Monday that the AIDS virus is the leading cause of death and disease among women between the ages of 15 and 44.
A sound practice: Cochlear implants restore children's hearing
Nov 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Ava Martin seems less nervous than her parents as the three sit in an audiologist’s office at UC Irvine Medical Center a few days after Labor Day. In August, the 6-year-old had surgery to place a cochlear ...
Medical aid group raises alarm about AIDS funding
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Nov 05, 2009 |
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(AP) -- The global recession and pressure to divert funds to other health crises are hurting the fight against AIDS, a medical group warned Thursday, with one health worker saying he feared a return to the days when the ...
HIV tamed by designer 'leash'
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Oct 29, 2009 |
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Researchers have shown how an antiviral protein produced by the immune system, dubbed tetherin, tames HIV and other viruses by literally putting them on a leash, to prevent their escape from infected cells. The insights reported ...
AIDS experts say Russia needs new HIV strategy
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Oct 28, 2009 |
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(AP) -- AIDS experts urged Russian officials on Wednesday to scrap their abstinence-based strategy for curbing the spread of HIV, saying the country's fast-growing epidemic could be entering a dangerous new phase.
Scientists use world's fastest supercomputer to create the largest HIV evolutionary tree
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Oct 27, 2009 |
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Supporting Los Alamos National Laboratory's role in the international Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI) consortium, researchers are using the Roadrunner supercomputer to analyze vast quantities of genetic sequences ...
Strategies to reduce HIV treatment dropout rates: cost-effective and improve survival chances
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Oct 26, 2009 |
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In a study published this week in PLoS Medicine, Elena Losina (of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston) and colleagues predict that strategies to reduce dropout rates from HIV treatment programs in resource-poor settin ...
Researchers question evidence linking overlapping sexual partners and African HIV rates
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Oct 22, 2009 |
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Contrary to conventional wisdom, scientific evidence proving that overlapping multiple sexual partners — concurrency — drives the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is actually quite limited, Brown University researchers ...
