Aids

AIDS

Many people in our lifetime don't take for granted many things and opportunities that are given in life. Breathing, hearing, tasting, sight, and the ability to smell are just some of the natural resources that we our given, but never really thought about. In today's world, many people die young and old to many diseases that occur and re-occur. When people think about death, they want to die in their sleep, but a large percentage of the world die from an incurable disease called AIDS. Also known as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, AIDS till this days has infected 40.3 million people worldwide and has increased in 2005 with 5 million infected. One of the number one growing diseases in the population, AIDS is a serious disease that doesn't have a cure.

What is AIDS you may ask? AIDS is a disease that attacks our immune system and leaves the victim with the possibility to many types of infections. Discovered in the United States in 1981, the findings of this disease occurred when 189 men, mostly homosexual got tested for it. What scientists found out was that the disease first appeared from HIV. Also known as human immunodeficiency virus, HIV is a retrovirus that is the cause of AIDS by infecting the helper T-cells in our immune system. Worldwide, almost 14,00 people are infected with HIV each day, with 95 percent of these new infections occurring in other developing countries. The region that is developing the virus even more than others is Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

With HIV and AIDS disturbing many nations daily, there are a couple of theories for how the disease came about. Scientific research shows that the only animal other than humans with the ability to get the disease is the monkey population, particularly green monkeys. It is a famous urban legend that the reason people are infected with the disease is because a male had sexual intercourse with the green monkey species. But scientists have stated it didn't have to occur from sexual intercourse, but many other things. For instance, people in Western Africa digest green monkey as a type of food, so it could have been caused through blood. Other researchers have a theory that humans have developed the virus through the twentieth century when we evolved from monkeys, but nothing is set in stone to be a fact.

In 1989, after AIDS started to become recognizable as a big plaque in society, heterosexual sex became the fastest growth of the virus, with 80 percent of new adult cases worldwide originating from heterosexual sex. Most common cases of mankind getting the HIV and AIDS virus is by a) homosexual men having anal intercourse, b) needle usage among people, causing different blood types to intertwine, and c) children developing it through pregnancy. In the United States 30 percent of newly reported AIDS cases were related to young adults abusing drugs. Also, transmission in pregnancy, high risk mothers include women who are married to bisexual men who have a abnormal blood condition called hemophilia and also the living status with people who have HIV among heterosexual population. Women who breast-feed while having the disease increase the chance for the child to get it 10- 20 percent, but using AZT during the pregnancy can reduce it. Women who are exposed to HIV through heterosexual contact are the most increased group of people in the United States population. From 1985 until 1999, the percentage of AIDS cases in women has increased 7 percent. When children are infected with the virus, the average child victim survives till the age of 7 years old, but some may live until early adolescence. Worldwide, AIDS is one of the 10 leading causes of death in children.

The cause and symptoms of HIV and AIDS, happens when HIV first attacks and destroys our immune cells, and then affects any of the bodies major organ systems. When the HIV attacks the body, it goes through 3 different disease processes: immunodeficiency, autoimmunity, and nervous system dysfunction. In the condition, Immunodeficiency,