Aids - Essay 9

HIV/AIDS
A virus is a microorganism, which cannot grow or reproduce apart from a living cell. Viruses infiltrate living cells and use them as a host replicating and spreading. A virus causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome commonly known as AIDS. As of 2008 there were an estimated 33.4 million people living with aids worldwide. The exact origin of the AIDS virus is uncertain, but there are many leading theories. AIDS has caused epidemics mainly in Africa but all over the world too.
AIDS is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It weakens the immune system, leaving carriers susceptible to infections and tumors.   AIDS is transferred through the mixing of bodily fluids of partners or sharing of needles. In 1959 an African man died of a strange illness.   Many years later it was discovered he died from AIDS through testing of his blood samples. The disease first came to the public eye in 1981; gay communities were first infected in California and New York. By 1983 thirty-three countries had confirmed cases in gay and heterosexual people. In 1987 a treatment is manufactured and approved by the FDA, by 1990 over 1 million individuals worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS. In 2005 4.9 million people were infected with the AIDS virus.
      By 2006 many experts concluded that HIV could be traced back to originating in African jungles among wild chimps.   It seems that the simian stain of HIV (SIV) entered human population through the ingestion of monkey flesh and brains, and from humans being bitten by infected monkeys. Normally infected hunters would fight off the SIV infection, but in special cases the disease would adapt to the carrier and proceed to be passed on.   Evidence for this theory is supported by how retroviral transfer from primates to hunters is still occurring even today. In a study of 1099 individuals in Cameroon, they discovered ten (1%) were infected with SFV (Simian Foamy Virus), an illness that, like...