AIDS: When body fails to generate security against germs

AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) passes through several phases. If the patient can be tendered the proper medical attention in the initial stages of the ailment, there is all the likelihood of the patient getting cured.

However, if the ailment is diagnosed at the later stages or in the final stage, it becomes quite difficult to cure the disease.

Clinically, the term ‘AIDS’ refers to the final stage after the HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) infects a person. Once HIV attacks, the patient gets infected with a particular disease transmitted sexually. This stage is called STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection). Therefore, ‘AIDS’ is used by physicians to mean those cases when the patient reaches the life-threatening phase of HIV after he/she suffers STI.

However, the STI symptoms may even take 10 years to actually surface. Hence the infected person fails to know of the symptoms until the disease actually takes deep roots in his/her body. By that time, the disease assumes the final and life-threatening ramifications.

CAUTION NOTE ON HIV

It is important to note that simply because a person is suffering from HIV it does not necessarily mean that the patient is having AIDS. But then there is all the possibility of the patient falling victim to AIDS.

The fact is that the symptoms of those illnesses that are clinically associated with full-blown cases of AIDS appear gradually. It may even take as many as 10 years for the symptoms or the ailments to surface.

MORE THAN 50 MILLION PEOPLE ARE INFECTED WITH HIV

Across the globe, more than 50 million people are infected with HIV. What is more, 99 per cent of these cases ultimately assume the full-blown AIDS stage. Researches have shown that 70 per cent of such cases are from the Third World countries. The incidences of HIV cases are on the decline in the advanced or developed world.

The reasons for such discrepancies are many. The primary ones are low rate of illiteracy, poor response of government, lack of infrastructure and above all, cultural and mental blocks. Mentionably, the sub-Saharan African region is particularly vulnerable to HIV infections.