Learning about HIV and Aids and Valuable Help Resources
Learning about HIV and Aids and Valuable Help Resources
HIV and AIDS are one of the leading causes of death among 24 to 45 year olds and yet so many Americans seem to know nothing about it. So many people in the world believe HIV and AIDS are the same thing, but they are sadly mistaken.
HIV is a virus. The letters stand for “Human Immunodefiency Virus.” HIV is a virus that attacks your immune system. What it attacks are important immune-system cells called T-cells. HIV is a retrovirus, which means it is slow moving. By attacking and killing the immune system’s T-cells, HIV can cause AIDS. Although, “HIV may move more rapidly in some people, on the average it takes ten years for HIV to cause AIDS, even with out treatment.”(HIV Positive)
AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. One does not have AIDS until their T-cell count drops below two hundred cells per cubic millimeter of blood, or if one begins to suffer from opportunistic infections. These include Pneumocystic Carnii Pneumonia (PCP), Kaposi’s sarcoma (a kind of skin cancer), Cytomegalovirus (CMV), and Candida (a fungal infection that can be found in the throat, mouth or vagina). So, just because a person is diagnosed HIV positive that does not mean they have AIDS, it just means the virus is in their body. AIDS does not come until the virus has beaten the T-cells. Therefore, the whole purpose of HIV treatment is to protect T-cells, and keep the HIV from turning into AIDS.
There has been a broad spectrum of theories associated with the origin of HIV. “HIV has been blamed on everything from “The White Man”, to the polio vaccine, to the CIA.”(HIV Positive) The truth is HIV has been spread to humans from monkeys. The same virus as HIV found in monkeys is called SIV, for Simian Immunodeficiency Virus. HIV-1 the type found most common in Central and Southern Africa, the United States the rest of the world seems to have come from chimpanzees. HIV-2, the type found in West Africa, seems to have come from the sooty mangabey monkey. Researchers believe the first infections occurred in the 1930’s. “This was long before the polio vaccine, and long before anyone, including “The White Man” and the CIA knew much of anything about...