Fluff50 said:
It's individual responsibility. Change your behaviour.
For those numbers to start decreasing in our country, we need for people to go and get their HIV status known.
Do you believe there is a cure...but that it is unavailable to certain ethnic backgrounds?
The HIV/AIDS pandemic (worldwide epidemic) appears from recent data to be as large as ever. Millions worldwide are infected each year. Millions are also dying each year. A 2004 report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates that in 2003 alone around 4.8 million people (range: 4.2–6.3 million) became infected with HIV. It is estimated that as of the end of 2003 around 37.8 million people (range: 34.6–42.3 million) were living with HIV. In 2003 this viral infection killed 2.9 million (range: 2.6–3.3 million) people. Over 20 million people worldwide have died since the first cases of AIDS were identified in 1981. In other words this epidemic has killed about as many people as currently live in the entire country of Australia (20,090,437 people).
HIV is a chronic and deadly infection that can take years to cause more and more damage to the person's immune system. Eventually, the person's immune
system cannot keep up with the amount of damage and they become AIDS patients. Many don't know they are infected until some unusual infection signals health care workers to look for HIV infection. Others find out they are infected following testing for the virus during routine screenings (prenatal visits, giving blood). Unfortunately, during this symptom-free time (asymptomatic period) the persons infected with HIV give the virus to other people.
There are several ways the virus can be transmitted: male homosexual interactions, heterosexual interactions, sharing of contaminated intravenous needles among intravenous drug abusers. Fetuses in the womb can get HIV from their HIV-infected mothers. Infants can get HIV from HIV-infected breast milk. The most common means of acquiring this virus varies from country to country, province to province and state to state. In the United States the most common means of transmission is by male homosexual interactions. In Sub-Saharan Africa the most common means of transmission is by heterosexual contact. Intravenous drug is the most common means of transmission in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Worldwide the most common means of acquiring HIV is by heterosexual contact.
When a person is infected with the HIV virus it infects cells that are vital to good immune functioning. It attacks and methodically over 10-15 years kills most of the cells important in helping the immune system respond to infection. These cells are called T-helper cells (T-lymphocytes or CD-4 cells). T-helper cells help other cells (B-lymphocytes; B-cells) in our body make antibiotics they help still other cells (CD-8 cells; T-cytotoxic cells; different type of T-lymphocyte) to eliminate virus infected cells and tumor cells.
Most of the T-helper cells that are infected with HIV will be forced by the virus to produce more virus. Following HIV virus replication the T-helper cells die. In time many of these cells are infected and daily many cells die. Fortunately, our bodies have an enormous capacity to produce more T-helper cells and keep up with the daily onslaught of T-helper cell death. In time, the body weakens for any number of reasons and the ability to keep up the necessary T-helper cell production wanes and an HIV infected person becomes an AIDS patient. AIDS patient's immune functioning is so poor that microbes that normally are no problem for a person now become life-threatening infections. Cancers are more common and the HIV virus itself can cause damage to other cells in the body resulting in damage to the patient's brain.
Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART; HIV is in the retrovirus family of viruses) is able to slow and for a time in some cases stop the persistent and systemic multiplication of HIV in the T-helper cells. Many felt initially that long term HAART therapy would cure people of HIV infection. Unfortunately, whenever someone on HAART therapy stops taking the medications the HIV virus starts up again and in time takes the life of the patient.
Researchers learned several years ago (1997) that not all T-helper cells become activated and produce HIV virus following infection. Some become resting T-helper cells. These cells contain the HIV virus genome in their DNA and it is believed that these HIV infected resting T-helper cells are the source for renewed multiplication of the HIV virus following termination of HAART therapy. HAART therapy only works on cells that are actively producing HIV virus so therapy is not helpful in eliminating this pool of HIV-infected resting T-helper cells. In time this pool of infected resting T-helpers cells does decline however it is at such a slow rate that many AIDS patients will die before they deplete all the infected resting T-helper cells in their bodies.
Activating these resting cells is one way some researchers believed might help in curing an HIV/AIDS patient. Unfortunately, doing that releases so many new viruses that even with intensive HAART therapy the patients get worse and the treatment become worse than the disease. Recently some scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas have reported (Depletion of latent HIV-1 infection in vivo: a proof-of-concept study. Lancet. 2005 Aug 13-19;366(9485):549-55) that a more subtle way of treating HIV patients might result in a cure.
They have found that a drug (valproic acid also called valproate) used in treating epilepsy might be useful in eliminating these HIV infected resting T-helper cells. They found that valproate inhibits an enzyme (histone deacetylase 1; HDAC 1) in the resting T-helper cells that keeps the HIV virus from multiplying. They discovered valproate allows viruses that have incorporated in the human DNA to take itself out of the DNA and commence virus replication. Therefore, the HIV-infected resting T-cells start making virus and are eliminated from the resting T-helper cell pool of immune cells. This medication does this without activating all the T-helper cells and causing too much virus replication.
By intensifying their HAART therapy and adding in a new medication called enfuvirtide they were able in 3 months of valproate treatment to lower the number of HIV-infected resting T-cells by greater than 70% in 3 out of the 4 patients tested. This is exciting news however, remember not all the HIV-infected resting T-cells were eliminated and much more work still needs to be done. But there is now more hope that other less toxic inhibitors of the HDAC 1 might be found. Still other ways of inducing virus replication in these resting cells could also be tried and maybe someday this horrific pandemic could be eliminated.
For more information go to the following webpages:
THEIR IS NO CURE FOR AIDS AT THIS TIME, JUST TREATMENTS, ANTIVIRAL DRUGS. IT VERY IMPORTANT TO DOUBLE UP, OR ABSTINENCE.
:angel