1st December 2009 is World AIDS Day

By
James
– December 1, 2009Posted in: Featured

Every year 1st December is observed as World Aids Day. On this day, awareness is raised about the disease in the society. This year’s theme is ‘Universal Access and Human Rights’. According to an estimation of the United Nations, 33.4 Million people are affected with this disease world wide. Nearly half of them are infected by this disease before the age of 25 and die before the age of 35. There are nearly 1.2 Million AIDS patients in United States, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 25% of them are unaware of their disease. Every year 40,000 new cases are reported. 75% of the new infections are in men. This article tries to understand the basics of AIDS.

What is AIDS : It stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The word acquired implies that the origin of the disease is from outside our body. Immune word indicates the immune system. It is the technical name of the protective mechanism of our body. Deficiency means inability of the protective system in its job. Syndrome is a group of health problems together forming a disease.

How is AIDS Caused : This disease is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus or the HIV virus. When this virus enters our body, the body’s protective mechanism starts fighting with it. When the blood of a person is tested, it can be found out whether HIV virus is present in the body or not. When the presence of this virus is confirmed, he is called HIV Positive.

Being HIV positive means his body’s defence system is still fighting with the HIV virus. Only when the body’s natural defence system fails in this task, we say that the person has AIDS. Mere confirmation of the presence of the virus, do not make a person AIDS patient.

How the HIV Virus Enters our Body: Blood, Semen, Breast milk, Fluid of the Vagina are some of the liquid substances present in our body. When a healthy individual comes in contact with these body fluids of an AIDS patient, the HIV virus enters his body. In this way, he acquires the virus from outside his body and becomes HIV positive. Though tears and saliva are also body fluids, no cases of the spreading of the disease is reported through them.

What Happens in an AIDS Patients Body: It is not easy to know that we are infected by the virus. The symptoms of infection can be similar to other common health problems like flu which we ignore easily. These virus enter our body and multiply in huge numbers. It takes weeks and even months for our body’s immune system to detect them and respond. By this time the virus build up a strong presence in the body. The body then produces special chemicals called anti bodies to fight with the virus. But the virus targets the destruction of this very ability of the body. Over a period of time, the virus completely destroys the ability of the body to produce antibodies in case of any viral attack. This exposes our body to large number of infections and make us prone to tumors. That is why AIDS is so dreadful.

There are no means available to stop this gradual destruction of the body. That is, there is no cure for AIDS yet. Medicines can only control the damage of the HIV virus to the immune system and delay the inevitable death. The effect of HIV virus is different on different people. Many die within few months. Others survive for years too after being confirmed as AIDS patient. Until any cure is available, prevention through awareness is our only weapon against AIDS. And hence the WORLD AIDS DAY.

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