AIDS

The incurable HIV virus causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, better known as AIDS. AIDS is a deadly disease that deteriorates the immune system. There are two groups of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), HIV-1 that occurs throughout the world and HIV-2 that mainly occurs in Africa. The HIV virus enters the white blood cells and takes over the reproductive system of that cell and uses the system to reproduce itself. The white blood cell dies and the new HIV cells infect other white blood cells and repeat the process.

If you have become infected with the AIDS disease you may not have any symptoms of the for the next ten years. The AIDS disease makes the less serious conditions harder for your body to control or get rid of because of the loss of many of the white blood cells in your body. The most common causes of death for the people with AIDS are pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma, which afflict 70% of the infected people.

AIDS is transmitted in three ways. Intimate sexual contact is the most common. While direct contact with infected blood and transactions to babies from the infected mother's fetus will also cause the disease. Although some speculation, you cannot receive the disease from air, food, water, or insects.

AIDS is a life and death issue. To have the AIDS disease is a sentence of slow but inevitable death. There currently is no cure or vaccine for this disease. There are drugs that have been proven effective in slowing the spread of this deadly disease.

We know enough about how the infection is transmitted to protect ourselves from it. But too few people are hearing the AIDS message. Perhaps many simply don't like or want to believe what they hear, preferring to think that AIDS "can't happen to them." Like other communicable diseases, AIDS can strike anyone. AIDS doesn't just occur in certain social groups. We must all protect ourselves from this infection and learn about it in time to take effective precautions. Given the right measures, no one needs to get AIDS. Now is the time to take charge against the AIDS disease. People must remember, that the most reliable person in charge of preventing you from getting AIDS, is yourself!

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