Is HIV dangerous?

How do you think?

Why is HIV dangerous?

Different viruses attack different parts of the body - some may attack the skin, others the lungs, and so on. The common cold is caused by a virus. What makes HIV so dangerous is that it attacks the immune system itself - the very thing that would normally get rid of a virus. It particularly attacks a special type of immune system cell known as a CD4 lymphocyte.

HIV has a number of tricks that help it to evade the body's defences, including very rapid mutation. This means that once HIV has taken hold, the immune system can never fully get rid of it.

There isn't any way to tell just by looking if someone's been infected by HIV. In fact a person infected with HIV may look and feel perfectly well for many years and may not know that they are infected. But as the person's immune system weakens they become increasingly vulnerable to illnesses, many of which they would previously have fought off easily.

The only reliable way to tell whether someone has HIV is for them to take a blood test , which can detect infection from a few weeks after the virus first entered the body.

The immune system is a group of cells and organs that protect your body by fighting disease. The human immune system usually finds and kills viruses fairly quickly.

So if the body's immune system attacks and kills viruses, what's the problem?

Get info on the next posting!

Woman & Aids

Worldwide, the face of AIDS increasingly has become female. Globally, women now comprise 50 percent of all people living with HIV/AIDS. In sub-Saharan Africa, women constitute 59 percent of all people living with the virus, a figure that rises to 76 percent among young people aged 15 to 24. In the U.S., girls make up 43 percent of people aged 13 to 19 with new HIV infections, and AIDS is now the leading cause of death for African-American women aged 25 to 34.

Both domestically and globally, women contract HIV/AIDS primarily through heterosexual sex. Biological susceptibility, economic instability, gender inequality, and violence are some of the risk factors associated with increased HIV/AIDS rates among women and girls. Lack of integrated prevention and treatment services, ineffective intervention programs, and a dearth of female-controlled prevention methods have contributed to this increased risk. A failure to fully examine the relationship between injection drug use and heterosexual sex has additionally led to increased rates of HIV/AIDS among women.

Women and men experience HIV differently in a number of important ways. In the biological and physiological realms, women are at least twice as likely to acquire HIV from men than vice versa during a single act of intercourse, and there are a number of HIV-related conditions that occur solely or more frequently in women. In the social and cultural realms, women have less economic power than men, are often forced to marry at a young age, and are more likely than men to be victims of sexual violence, including rape—factors that all confer added vulnerability to HIV infection. Thus, efforts to address the increasingly disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls must take into account the complex interplay of biological and social forces that fuel the epidemic.

In order to address the alarming rates of HIV/AIDS among women and girls in the U.S. and internationally, amfAR has launched the Women, Sexual Health, and HIV/AIDS initiative. The primary goal of the initiative is to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS epidemic among women and girls, and to promote research, education, and policy activities to address it.

Specific components of amfAR’s initiative include research fellowships and small grants for innovative projects in the biomedical and social sciences; a symposium and briefing series to highlight research findings and their application to policies and programs; public and professional education events for HIV care providers and community members; and advocacy work in coalition with other organizations to support sound public policies affecting women and girls.
http://www.amfar.org

India tops world HIV/AIDS cases

Mumbai, India — Pink baby dresses ribbed with lace hang in a well-lighted room where prostitutes learn to sew as their children doze, sheltered from Bombay's sweltering heat.

Outside, women stand with their hands on their hips, trying to catch the eye of any passing man in the Kamathipura red-light district, where about half of Bombay's 10,000 prostitutes work.

Shehnaz Begum knows the place well. She spent 10 years on its streets, fleeing only when the prospect of AIDS grew too terrifying.

For years, Indian health activists and officials argued about the number of people infected with the AIDS virus, debating whether the situation was stabilizing in India or about to explode.

On Tuesday, UNAIDS issued a report saying India has world's largest number of people living with HIV. With an estimated 5.7 million infections, the country has surpassed South Africa's 5.5 million.

The 630-page report documents countries' progress and failures, and projects what must happen to keep some regions from experiencing disaster. The agency report was released a day ahead of a high-level meeting on AIDS in New York, and a week prior to the 25th anniversary of the first documented AIDS cases on June 5, 1981.

“I think we will see a further globalization of the epidemic spreading to every single corner of the planet,” UNAIDS head Dr. Peter Piot said in an interview.

Nearly 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.

The epidemic still remains at its worst in sub-Saharan Africa, where per capita rates continue to climb in several countries. A third of adults were infected in Swaziland in 2005. By comparison, India's per capita rate is low, at 0.9 per cent of its 1.02 billion people.

Dr. Piot said one of the report's most disturbing findings was how few babies are being protected against infection. Only nine per cent of pregnant women in poor countries are receiving services, such as access to drugs, to help prevent mother-to-child transmission, despite a UNAIDS goal of 80 per cent coverage.

Women's vulnerability to the disease continues to increase, with more than 17 million women infected worldwide, nearly half the global total, and more than three-quarters of them living in sub-Saharan Africa, the report found.

In India, there are signs of hope despite the huge numbers of infections.

Intensive AIDS prevention efforts among prostitutes and the men who frequent them have pushed down HIV infections dramatically in four south Indian states, according to a recent University of Toronto study.

The study found a 35 per cent drop in HIV among people aged 15-24 years because of efforts by authorities and non-governmental groups to educate sex workers. Places like Kamathipura are now dotted with posters, street theatre performances and educators, all offering information about AIDS and HIV. Bombay is in Maharashtra state, one of the four states where the study found the decline.

“HIV remains a huge problem in India,” said Rajesh Kumar, an author of the study. “We're not saying the epidemic is under control yet; we are saying that prevention efforts with high-risk groups thus far seem to be having an effect.”

Mr. Begum, 48, has seen the changes. A seamstress, ex-prostitute and informal AIDS educator, she is in the forefront of the fight to slow the spread of HIV.

Bending over a sewing machine, Mr. Begum adjusts her spectacles as she teaches younger women, all current or former prostitutes, the finer points of dressmaking and gives them a chance to talk about HIV. She left “the business,” as she calls it, four years ago.

“Women are smarter now. They insist customers wear condoms. They know you have a man for six months, then he moves on and you can be left with the disease. Then who will look after your children?” she says.

The women crowding around her chime in.

“Very few women will go with a customer if he doesn't wear a condom,” said Chandi Sayeed, 39, who was sold into prostitution at age 16 and got out of the life in 2001. “We tell them to always wear a condom.”

Studies by PSI, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit, have shown a fall from a 65 per cent HIV-positive rate five years ago among Bombay prostitutes to 50 per cent today, said Shilpa Merchant, the group's AIDS co-ordinator.

Intensive education appears to have driven down infection rates, but many people are still at risk, Ms. Merchant said. While many “core transmitters,” such as truckers and prostitutes, have been reached, the “bridge” population, such as truckers' wives, have received little attention, she said.

“At least 80 per cent of sex workers use condoms compared to the 1990s when they hadn't even heard of condoms,” she said. Many in the other groups, though, still “think this is a disease other people get.”

RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM,2006