introduction to AIDSAIDS is a disease of most concern to the global society today. This is mainly because very little is known about methods to control the virus, besides that the evil is spreading throughout the world at an alarming rate.

Every 10 minutes someone is infected by this disease. For this reason it is extremely important to know more about what HIV/AIDS, how it spreads and how they can prevent.

WHAT IS AIDS?

Syndrome = set of signs and symptoms.

Immune Deficiency = significant depletion of the immune system.

Acquired = due to a virus contracted by the patient during his lifetime. The disease is not hereditary.

When HIV enters the bloodstream, it attaches to the cell, and transcribes viral RNA into DNA, which enters the cell nucleus to form part of the cell’s genetic code.

When this happens, the virus is slowly destroying T4 cells, but the immune system is strong and can go even regenerating cells destroyed, at this stage the symptoms are not presented in person.

AIDS, is the set of clinical manifestations that occur as a consequence of depression of the immune system due to infection by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). A person infected with HIV is losing, gradually, the function of certain immune system cells called CD4 T cells, making it susceptible to various infections such as pneumonia or fungal infections. In some cases, these opportunistic infections (infections by microorganisms that usually do not cause disease in healthy people but they do in those who have lost, in part, immune system function) can even cause death or development in the patient of various cancers.

At the beginning of the 1980s were detected several deaths due to opportunistic infections were also observed in transplant patients receiving immunosuppressive therapy to prevent rejection of the transplanted organ. Apparently, a large number of these deaths occurred in male homosexuals.

In 1983, a French specialist in cancer, Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, succeeded in isolating a new human retrovirus in a lymph node of a man suffering from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Around the same time, American scientists also managed to isolate a retrovirus in AIDS patients and in people who dealt with AIDS patients. This virus, known as HIV today, turned out to be the causative agent of AIDS.

It is important to consider that getting an HIV infection does not necessarily mean that the person will develop acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, although those patients who were diagnosed with HIV infection are considered, erroneously, as AIDS patients. In fact, there is evidence that some people have been infected with HIV for over ten years without, during this time, having developed any clinical manifestations that define an AIDS diagnosis. In 1997 it was estimated that over 30 million people worldwide were living with HIV or had AIDS (29.5 million adults and 1.1 million children).

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that since 1981, when the first AIDS cases were detected until the end of 1998, over 12.9 million adults and children have developed clinical AIDS-defining. In this same period there have been 11.7 million deaths from this cause. Spain is the European country with the highest incidence of the disease and ranks second (after USA) in number of cases in the Western world.

MAIN SYMPTOMS

• Depletion prolonged unexplained.
• swollen glands (lymph nodes).
• Fever lasting more than 10 days.
• Colds.
• Excessive sweating, especially at night.
• injuries including sore mouth and gums swollen and painful.
• Sore throat.
• Cough.
• Shortness of breath.
• Change in habits, including constipation.
• Frequent diarrhea.
• Symptoms of a specific infection (such as candida, pneumocystis, etc.)..
• Tumors (Kaposi sarcoma)
• Skin rashes or other injuries.
• Unintentional weight loss.
• General discomfort or uneasiness.
• Headache

Besides these symptoms may develop some more. It is important to mention that initially, ie when the infection is not present any noticeable symptoms

HIV is spread by direct contact through contaminated blood, semen and other sexual secretions. The virus in sexual flows infected men and women can pass into the bloodstream of a healthy person through small cuts or abrasions that may occur in the course of homo or heterosexual relationships.

One of the main mechanisms of transmission and spread of the disease is the sharing of needles or syringes contaminated with infected blood. This mode of transmission affects mostly intravenous drug addicts.

Currently, HIV infection due to blood transfusions is very unlikely, because the tests have been developed for the detection of virus in the blood.

The human immunodeficiency virus may also spread from infected mother to fetus through the placenta and the baby through breast milk. Although only 25-35% of children born to mothers with AIDS have HIV infection, this mode of transmission is responsible for 90% in all cases of pediatric AIDS.

In Western countries, the highest number of cases due to sexual intercourse has occurred through homosexual transmission, unlike what happens in Spain, where the largest number of infections due to heterosexual transmission.