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AIDS

AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) is one of the worst pandemics the world has ever known. HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the virus that causes AIDS, was first discovered in 1981 and it has since swept across the globe, infecting millions in a relatively short period of time. AIDS has killed 28.1 million people that we know of, with 3 million people dying in the year 2002 alone. Clearly the AIDS pandemic has had, and will continue to have, a significant and global impact.

What HIV does is invades the cells of our immune system and reprogram the cells to become HIV-producing factories. Slowly the number of immune cells in the body deteriorates, and AIDS develops. Once AIDS manifests, a person is susceptible to many different infections, because the immune system has been weakened so much by the HIV it can no longer fight back effectively. HIV has also shown the ability to mutate, which makes treating the virus nearly impossible.

A person can carry and transmit the HIV virus for many years before any symptoms show themselves. A person can be contagious for a decade or more before any visible signs of disease become apparent. In a decade, an HIV carrier can potentially infect dozens of people, who each can infect dozens of people, and so on.

Here is a brief overview of the life cycle of the AIDS virus
 
As you can see here are the basic parts of an HIV Virus.

• HIV are genes which are composed of ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules. Like all viruses, HIV replicates inside host cells. Once the HIV virus enters the body, it heads for the lymphoid tissues, where it finds T-helper cells.
• Binding - The HIV attaches to the immune cell when the HIV virus binds with the protein of the T-helper cell. The viral core enters the T-helper cell and the protein membrane fuses with the cell membrane.
• Reverse transcription - The viral enzyme copies the virus\'s RNA into DNA.
• The newly created DNA is carried into the cell\'s nucleus by the enzyme, viral integrase, and it binds with cell\'s DNA. HIV DNA is called a provirus.
• Transcription - The viral DNA in the nucleus separates and creates messenger RNA (mRNA), using the cell\'s own enzymes. The mRNA contains the instructions for making new viral proteins.
• Translation - The mRNA is carried back out of the nucleus by the cell\'s enzymes. The virus then uses the cell\'s natural protein-making mechanisms to make long chains of viral proteins and enzymes.
• Assembly - RNA and viral enzymes gather at the edge of the cell. An enzyme, called protease, cuts the polypeptides into viral proteins.
• Budding - New HIV virus particles pinch out from the cell membrane and break away with a piece of the cell membrane surrounding them. This is how enveloped viruses leave the cell. In this way, the host cell is not destroyed.
• The newly replicated virions will infect other T-helper cells and cause the person\'s T-helper cell count to slowly decrease. When a person\'s T-helper cell count drops below 200,000 cells per one milliliter of blood, he or she is considered to have AIDS. The development of AIDS takes about two to 15 years, but about half of all people with HIV will develop AIDS within 10 years after becoming infected
• No one dies from AIDS or HIV specifically. Instead, an AIDS-infected person dies from infections, because his or her immune system has been dissipated. An AIDS patient could die from the common cold as easily as he or she could from cancer. The person\'s body cannot fight off the infection, and he or she eventually dies.

Legal/ Political issues

Ø DNA Testing

• Encouraging patients to agree to routine HIV testing, even if they appear at low risk for the disease, would not only prolong life but also save health care dollars.
  This will allow us to identify people who were not previously aware of being HIV positive. By picking up early on HIV infection in patients, patients can be started sooner on antiviral drugs that will prolong life.
  In North America, testing for the AIDS virus is preformed only with a patient's consent, and it usually when they have symptoms or at a high risk for the disease
  .
  ØSelective Testing and Discrimination
• Selective testing can lead to certain groups of people being pressured to get tested over others; groups that are stereotypically believed to possess AIDS.
  This type of selective testing is a form of discrimination to categorize certain people as having HIV.

Economical/ Moral/ Ethical Issues

Ø Prevention V.S Cure

• HIV prevention will save more lives in the long run; it is estimated one infection saved today is saving one person or family, one infections prevented will save hundreds of lives over the next decade due to the way HIV spreads.

Ø Rationalizing Costs Of Antiviral Medication

• Due to the high cost of these medications, in poor countries it is almost impossible to spend a portion of hospital/clinic budgets on Antiviral medications.
  It is not right for one person to have their life extended by a few months, at the expense of a hundred others who could be permanently cured.

Scientific/Social Issues

Ø AIDS Test Accuracy

• Many people are surprised to learn that there is no such thing as a test for AIDS. The tests popularly referred to as \"AIDS tests\" do not identify or diagnose AIDS and cannot detect HIV, the virus claimed to cause AIDS. The tests detect only interactions between proteins and antibodies thought to be specific for HIV they do not detect HIV itself.
• One reason for the tests\' tremendous inaccuracy is that a variety of viruses, bacteria and other antigens can cause the immune system to make antibodies that also react with HIV. When the antibodies produced in response to these other infections and antigens react with HIV proteins, a positive result is registered. Many antibodies found in normal, healthy, HIV-free people can cause a positive reading on HIV antibody tests. Since the antibody production generated by a number of common viral infections can continue for years after the immune system has defeated a virus and even for an entire lifetime people never exposed to HIV can have consistent positive results on HIV tests for years or for their entire lives.
• The accuracy of an antibody test can be established only by verifying that positive results are found in people who actually have the virus.
• HIV antibody tests are not standardized. This means that there are no nationally or internationally accepted criteria for what constitutes a positive result.
• Standards also vary from lab to lab within the same country or state, and can even differ from day to day at the same lab.

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