AIDS: Aquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome I am doing a report on AIDS, I don't know much about AIDS but I will tell you what I know. I know that it is transmitted by sexual contact,blood,needles,children during/before birth. I also know it affects the immune system directly, It is caused by the virus HIV which they have no cure for either AIDS or HIV at the current moment, but they are doing serious research on them. I call it the "Generation X Disease" because it mostly affects my sex-oriented generation. It is currently one of the leading causes of death in the USA and the death rate is increasing drastically! It it the perfect virus of the ninties because of how it is transmitted is like what the ninties is about... sex and drugs(what a great generation huh). Everyone's doing drugs and having pre-marital sex at a young irresponsable age, it's getting so bad I am beginning to believe that I am the only normal person left. You used to only be able to get an HIV test at your doctor, but now they have home tests that are confidential. You go to the store pick one up prick your finger then mail in the blood sample, in about two or three weeks you call in and enter your special pin number and they give you your results. I think this is cool but there has to be some drawbacks like them getting samples messed up and it getting mixed up in the mail or other stupid things like that, like if you really don't have the disease but you get someone elses reading who does have HIV. Thats about all I know about this horrible disease,so ill move on to what I found when I reaserched this topic. I went on the internet to find some of my information, and i used different books the librarian recommended me to read on AIDS and HIV. AIDS appears to be constantly changing it's genetic structure so it makes it very hard to find a cure for it, and very hard for the body to make antibodies. This makes development of a vaccine that is able to raise protective antibodies to all virus strands a difficult task. I also found out that they have made so much progress in finding a cure because they know so much about it now. The only known chemical that is effective in reducing reactions/symptoms, is the chemical zidovudine which was formerly called azidothymidine(AZT). Which was developed in 1987. It is indicated thet few if any are likely to survive the virus in the long run. The AIDS epidemic is having a major impact on many aspects of medicine and health care. The U.S. Public Health Service estimates thet the annual cumulative lifetime cost of treating all persons with AIDS in 1991 is $5.3 billion; this was expected to reach $7 billion by 1991. People exposed to HIV are having alot of difficulty obtaining adequate health insurance coverage. I found that Yearly AZT expenses, for example can average around six- thousand dollars, although in 1989 the drug's maker did offer to distribute AZT freely to HIV- infected children. The yearly se for DDI is around two-thousand dollars. It is a big problem problem when legal action might have to be taken. Pretty soon mandatory testing of the disease will be a necessity not a right, and most people are to scared or to embarassed to ask their partner if they are infected. The first case of AIDS was identified in 1979 in New York. Workers in the National Cancer Institute developed tests for AIDS enabeling them to follow the transmission of the disease and to study the origin and it's mechanism. It is thought that AIDS was originated in Africa, because it is know to infect some african monkeys and alot of cases have been reported there. In 1990 the WHO(World Health Orginization) announced that there was 203,599 reported cases of AIDS in 1996 it was in the millions! So this shows how fast this disease spreads and how it affects everyone.