What is aids? (An article from English Salon Magazine)

 

 What is AIDS?

  This is a terrible disease, for which we do not yet have a cure. Nor do we have a vaccine. Meanwhile, the mortality rate for AIDS is virtually 100 percent.

  AIDS is an acronym for "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome." First , the immune system is that biological system in your body which fights off diseases. This system is composed of mostly of what are commonly termed "white blood cells" . These cells are the hunters in the body. When a virus, such as the common cold, or some other illness-causing "bug" invades the body, the white blood cells rush to the invader and kill it. While these blood cells are busy killing an invader, the body's immune system is said to "be under attack". If another virus or bacteria enters the body at the same time as the white blood cells are busy fighting off one invader, the second attacker has a better chance of injuring the rest of the body's systems. A syndrome is a collection or group of diseases which, when appearing in a person who is immunocompromised will develop into one or more infectious diseases which will kill the body.

  Scientists found a virus, which they called the "Human Immunodeficiency Virus" (HIV). Its areas of operation appears to be totally in cells which make up the blood and a few other body fluids.  The HIV attacks white blood cells and injures or kills them, thus preventing these white blood cells from carrying on their important work of killing the other invading and attackiing viruses which float in the air and swim in our drinking water. After entering the bloodstream, it takes a few years for the HIV to eat up the army of white blood cells which protect the body. This causes the human diseases "defense system" to be incapable of defending itself from new and protent viruses. When practically all the white blood cells have been devoured or changed, then "opportunistic infections" associated with actual AIDS attacks and very quickly kills the human body. The HIV is the virus which kill s the defensive white cells. It can take up to eight years for the virus to do its destructive work in a strong , healthy body. In a weak, unhealthy body, the job of destruction of the white blood cells can be accomplished in as little as one or two years.

  Infection begins when HIV enters the bloodstream and stimulates an immune response and the developement of antibodies. It is these antibodies which are manufactured by the body which are the detectable units which appear when one is tested for the virus. If the blood contains these antibodies, one is said to be seropositive, that is one is infected and is presumably capable of transmitting the virus to other people. Most infected people have no symptoms and do not know that they are carring the virus. This is technically termed the asymptomatic stage and can last, as we have said, up to eight years.