We all know that AIDS is a deadly disease, which has spread a lot in the last century. How many of us really know how this particular syndrome affects people and what does it mean?
AIDS is the acronym for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. This is an affliction that damages the immune system that brings other syndromes and infections brought about by the lowering of the immune system.
HIV on the other hand, stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus and is the virus that causes AIDS. The virus triggers AIDS and progresses until the infected person succumbs and dies.
Up to this date, there is still no known cure for this disease. Medicines and surgical treatments are done to retard its development. In 1981 AIDS has been officially declared as a disease and aligned with the rest of the other known diseases. Still millions continue to die and suffer from this disease. Based on the World Health Organization statistics 2006 saw 2.9 million deaths because of AIDS and 39.5 million infected globally.
What really is bad is the fact that the number of infected people increases every year. According to the same organization, the number of people, which contact the disease every year, is up to 4.3 million. On a world level, it seems that the HIV infected people are about 1%, for the 15-45 age groups. It is also considered that in Africa, the percentage of people in the same age category, which have been infected with HIV so far, is 20%, or more in some certain regions. These statistics should be an alarm signal for all human beings around the world. The HIV, and what it can do to human bodies is awful and people should care more.
AIDS is the summation of all the diseases associated with HIV infection. This infection triggers the weakening of the immune system and until its final breakdown. Majority of all the infected and untreated persons will sooner or later develop the AIDS.
This has a disastrous effect especially on the young population, especially the young people who are sexually active. That is not a rule though, and it does not mean that the rest of the people categories are safe from it. It is usually transmitted by sexual contact but this is not the only way this virus spreads.
An infected mother can transfer the virus to the foetus. Consequently, the baby will be born, that is if the foetus completes the term, carrying the virus. The virus could be transferred to the baby through contact with the mother’s blood or through breast feeding.
Despite the worldwide attention it is getting and the application of the most sophisticated and state-of-the-art treatments, HIV continues to evolve and claim millions of lives, which leaves the scientific world stumped. Meanwhile the world is on standby while this 21st century epidemic continues to wreak havoc to the world’s population, especially on those innocent children.
