The arrival of the AIDS epidemic in the 20th Century, brought with it fear, superstition and prejudice. This disease is not the first one where society has imposed social stigmas, political agendas and outright pandemonium. Misunderstandings of other diseases like the bubonic plague, small pox and the Spanish flu also have caused hysteria among populations around the world, but the main difference between these epidemics and that of AIDS/HIV is that AIDS is a modern epidemic staged in a new world of influential media outlets, politics and new social stigmas (Stank 2) .
In order to combat the societal misunderstandings of AIDS/HIV, one must understand the disease itself. When referring to AIDS/HIV, one is actually talking about two different parts of the same disease. AIDS (Auto Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is the main disease caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) (CDC 4). AIDS attacks the immune system of people causing their immune systems to revolt against their bodies killing off their “good” cells. With this self-annihilation comes the opportunity for other infectious diseases to take root in the victim.
Some of these other infections include but are not limited to: the flu, tuberculosis, herpes, staph infections, etc… Once the host’s immunological functions cease to exist they die. Therefore researchers conducted this study because nowadays the number of people getting HIV is increasing. With the intent of the unfolding area of concern, this study may serve as means to help and make other people more aware on how this disease/virus affect ourselves and to our community. The findings of this study were to establish the reason behind why and how this virus increases and some recommendations as to how to prevent and avoid this virus.
Theoretical framework An article published in The Lancet in 2004, also shows how retroviral transfer from primates to hunters is still occurring even today. In a sample of 1099 individuals in Cameroon, they discovered ten (1%) were infected with SFV (Simian Foamy Virus), an illness which, like SIV, was previously thought only to infect primates. All these infections were believed to have been acquired through the butchering and consumption of monkey and ape meat. Discoveries such as this have led to calls for an outright ban on bush meat hunting to prevent simian viruses being passed to humans.
Some other rather controversial theories have contended that HIV was transferred estrogenically (i. e. via medical interventions). One particularly well-publicized idea is that polio vaccines played a role in the transfer. In his book, The River, the journalist Edward Hooper suggests that HIV can be traced to the testing of an oral polio vaccine called Chat, given to about a million people in the Belgian Congo, Ruanda and Ulundi in the late 1950s. To be reproduced, live polio vaccine needs to be cultivated in living tissue, and Hooper’s belief is that Chat was grown in kidney cells taken from local chimps infected with SIVcmz.
This, he claims, would have resulted in the contamination of the vaccine with chimp SIV, and a large number of people subsequently becoming infected with HIV-1. Many people have contested Hooper’s theories and insist that local chimps were not infected with a strain of SIVcmz that is closely linked to HIV. Furthermore, the oral administration of the vaccine would seem insufficient to cause infection in most people (SIV/HIV needs to get directly into the bloodstream to cause infection – the lining of the mouth and throat generally act as good barriers to the virus).
In February 2000 the Westar Institute in Philadelphia (one of the original manufacturers of the Chat vaccine) announced that it had discovered in its stores a phial of polio vaccine that had been used as part of the program. The vaccine was subsequently analyzed and in April 2001 it was announced that no trace had been found of either HIV or chimpanzee SIV. A second analysis confirmed that only macaque monkey kidney cells, which cannot be infected with SIV or HIV, were used to make Chat. While this is just one phial of many, it means that the OPV theory remains unproven.
The fact that the OPV theory accounts for just one (group M) of several different groups of HIV also suggests that transversal must have happened in other ways too, as does the fact that HIV seems to have existed in humans before the vaccine trials were ever carried out. More about when HIV came into being can be found below. This is an extension of the original ‘hunter’ theory. In the 1950s, the use of disposable plastic syringes became commonplace around the world as a cheap, sterile way to administer medicines.
However, to African healthcare professionals working on inoculation and other medical programmers, the huge quantities of syringes needed would have been very costly. It is therefore likely that one single syringe would have been used to inject multiple patients without any sterilization in between. This would rapidly have transferred any viral particles (within a hunter’s blood for example) from one person to another, creating huge potential for the virus to mutate and replicate in each new individual it entered, even if the SIV within the original person infected had not yet converted to HIV.
The colonialism or ‘Heart of Darkness’ theory is one of the more recent theories to have entered into the debate. It is again based on the basic ‘hunter’ premise, but more thoroughly explains how this original infection could have led to an epidemic. It was first proposed in 2000 by Jim Moore, an American specialist in primate behavior, who published his findings in the journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses. During the late 19th and early 20th century, much of Africa was ruled by colonial forces.
In areas such as French Equatorial Africa and the Belgian Congo, colonial rule was particularly harsh and many Africans were forced into labor camps where sanitation was poor, food was scarce and physical demands were extreme. These factors alone would have been sufficient to create poor health in anyone, so SIV could easily have infiltrated the labor force and taken advantage of their weakened immune systems to become HIV. A stray and perhaps sick chimpanzee with SIV would have made a welcome extra source of food for the workers.
Moore also believes that many of the laborers would have been inoculated with unsterile needles against diseases such as smallpox (to keep them alive and working), and that many of the camps actively employed prostitutes to keep the workers happy, creating numerous possibilities for onward transmission. A large number of laborers would have died before they even developed the first symptoms of AIDS and those that did get sick would not have stood out as any different in an already disease-ridden population.
Even if they had been identified, all evidence (including medical records) that the camps existed was destroyed to cover up the fact that a staggering 50% of the local population was wiped out there. This concept greatly helps in misunderstanding the reactions and questions of those people who are curios and for those who are affected with this type of virus. Schematic Diagram Statement of the problem This study determined other facts and studies involving this topic about HIV aids. Specifically, it sought answer to subsequent questions: 1. What type of virus is HIV?
HIV is a lent virus, and like all viruses of this type, it attacks the immune system. Lent viruses are in turn part of a larger group of viruses known as retroviruses. The name ‘lent virus’ literally means ‘slow virus’ because they take such a long time to produce any adverse effects in the body. They have been found in a number of different animals, including cats, sheep, horses and cattle. However, the most interesting lent virus in terms of the investigation into the origins of HIV is the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) that affects monkeys, which is believed to be at least 32,000 years old.
2. What HIV does in your body? When you are infected with HIV, there are multiple things happening in your immune system at the cellular level. When HIV enters your body through sexual contact, transfusions with infected blood or by injection with a needle that has infected blood in or on it, researchers believe that the virus attaches to a specific type of immune system cell called a dendritic cell. These cells are found in mucocutaneous (mucosal membranes) areas that line the mouth, the vagina, rectum, penis, and the upper gastrointestinal tract.
Scientists think that these dendritic cells transport the virus from the site of the infection to your lymph nodes where HIV can infect other immune system cells. 3. How does an HIV aid affect a human body? HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is the virus that causes a person to develop the disease known as AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. ) HIV is transmitted through direct contact with infected blood, semen, vaginal fluid or breast milk. When a person is infected with HIV, the virus attacks cells that are associated with immune function.
Over the course of time, if left untreated, the virus can cause the individual to have increased difficulty fighting infections and places them at higher risk for opportunistic infections which can be deadly. There are many treatment options available to those who are infected with HIV however. These treatments help to increase immune function and decrease the amount of virus in a person’s system. There is currently no cure for infection. Significance of the study…..