Danger of Asquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome (aids)

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

AIDS is one of the infections diseases which spreads all over the continents of the Earth are induces thousands diseases. This is one of the most tragic problems humanity faces now. The disease is spreading incredibly fast.

The term «syndrome» means a number of symptoms. AIDS is now a pandemic. The first cases of disease were registered in USA.

AIDS invades from one person to another mainly through sexual contact; through blood transfusion, perinatal transmission; through numerous using of needles and syringes; tattooing etc. Needle sharing is the cause of one third of all new HIV-infections in North America, China, and Eastern Europe. The risk of being infected with HIV from a single prick with a needle that has been used on an HIV-infected person is thought to be about 1 in 150. The risk of transmitting HIV to blood transfusion recipients is extremely low in developed countries where improved donor selection and HIV screening is performed.

The transmission of the virus from the mother to the child can occur in utero during the last weeks of pregnancy and at childbirth. In the absence of treatment, the transmission rate between a mother and her child during pregnancy, labor and delivery is 25%.

However, when the mother takes antiretroviral therapy and gives birth by caesarean section, the rate of transmission is just 1%. The risk of infection is influenced by the viral load of the mother at birth, with the higher the viral load, the higher the risk. Breastfeeding also increases the risk of transmission by about 4 %.^[62]

A number of misconceptions have arisen surrounding HIV/AIDS. Three of the most prevalent are that AIDS can spread through casual contact, that sexual contact with a virgin will cure AIDS, and that HIV can infect only homosexual men and drug users. Other misconceptions are that any act of anal intercourse between gay men can lead to AIDS infection, and that open discussion of homosexuality and HIV in schools will lead to increased rates of homosexuality and AIDS.

The disease has extensive character and has several stages.

After infection the moment of which is hard to define it comes the so called incubation period. It can last for 3-6 weeks and then an acute phase occurs. Symptoms: a high temperature, enlarging of lymphatic glands, rash on face and body. This condition lasts for about 2-4 weeks and passes without any treatment. After the acute infection phase, non-symptom infection phase occure.

Detecting of the virus presence is possible only by special laboratory research tests. This period lasts up to 3-5 years and even more. This time person feels healthy but remains a carrier of infection. The next stage in the stage of secondary diseases. Enlarging of lymphatic glands is joined by such symptoms as indigestion, continuous (about 1 month) running a high temperature, losing a body weight reaching 10% and more.

HIV infection may lead to a variety of pulmonary (lungs), gastrointestinal infection neuropsychiatric sequelae, either by infection of the now susceptible nervous system by organisms, or as a direct consequence of the illness itself.

For example: neurological – encephalitis (inflammation of the encephalon), meningitis – inflammation of the meninx (the membrane covering the encephalon and spinal cord); eyes – retinitis (inflammation of the retina of the eye); lungs – pneumonia (lung inflammation), tuberculosis (infections disease characterized by growth of noduies in the tissue), tumors – sweling of a part of the body, generally without inflammatoin; skin - tumors; gastrointestinal – esophagitis (inflammation of the esophagus), chronic diarrhea, tumors.

At this stage medical efforts are directed to reduce the suffering of the patient.

Current treatment for HIV infection consists of highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART.

Without treatment, the net median survival time after infection with HIV is estimated to be 9 to 11 years, depending on the HIV subtype,^[and the median survival rate after diagnosis of AIDS in resource-limited settings where treatment is not available ranges between 6 and 19 months, depending on the study. In areas where it is widely available, the development of HAART as effective therapy for HIV infection and AIDS reduced the death rate from this disease by 80%, and raised the life expectancy for a newly diagnosed HIV-infected person to about 20 years.

Without antiretroviral therapy, death normally occurs within a year.

Ukraine has one of the fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemics in the world. About 0.96 percent of Ukrainians, or about 440,000 citizens, were estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS in 2007, up from 1.46 percent of the population in 2005, or 685,600 citizens, according to UNAIDS. The number of HIV/AIDS cases in Ukraine reduced by 200 or 3.9% to 4,900 in the period of January-November 2008, compared with the corresponding period of last year. Ukraine has one of the highest rates of increase of HIV/AIDS cases in Eastern Europe.

Identified in the country in 1987, HIV/AIDS appeared to be confined to a small population of foreign students until the mid-1990s, when a sudden and explosive epidemic emerged among injecting drug users in the southern and eastern regions of the country.

Although HIV/AIDS has to date remained concentrated among marginalized and vulnerable populations, it may be spreading to the general population. The majority of those infected are under 30 years of age; a full 25% of those affected are still in their teens.