AIDS

DISEASE AND ITS PREVENTION
AIDS

HIV virus going out of a cel
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a syndrome caused by a virus called HIV.

Acquired means that people are not born with the disease. They get it after being infected with the HIV virus.
Immune or Immuno- talks about the immune system. The immune system is the part of the body that fights off disease.
Deficiency means not enough. An immuno-deficiency is a problem where the immune system is damaged and cannot fight off diseases to keep the body healthy.
Syndrome is a collection of symptoms, or problems in the body. Because the immune system is damaged, and cannot fight off disease, people with AIDS get a collection of symptoms which is referred to as the "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome."
Treatment of HIV and AIDS

There are medicines that help people with AIDS. These are called antiretroviral medicines (or antiretrovirals.) Anti- means against. HIV is a retrovirus. So antiretroviral means it fights retroviruses.

Antiretrovirals cannot cure AIDS. This means they cannot make all of the virus leave a person's body. But they can make people with AIDS more healthy. Antiretrovirals help people fight the HIV virus. This makes their immune systems work better. So antiretrovirals are a treatment but not a cure for HIV.

People with HIV/AIDS who take antiretroviral medicines live longer. They live longer without getting AIDS defining illnesses. But after a long time, the HIV virus learns how to fight the antiretrovirals. The HIV virus is not killed by this medicine. HIV becomes resistant to the medicine. Then the resistant HIV hurts the immune system and the person may get AIDS.

Sometimes when HIV is resistant to one medicine, another medicine can be used. To make less resistance happen, people with AIDS take more than one medicine at the same time. They may take 2–4 medicines at once. This is sometimes called a cocktail or AIDS cocktail.

When HIV gets resistant to one medicine, this is changed to another medicine. So the AIDS cocktail that people with AIDS take changes over time. But after a long time, the HIV learns to be resistant to many drugs. This is called multi-drug-resistant (acronym MDR) HIV. After the HIV in a person has MDR-HIV there may be no more medicines to treat them. So scientists keep trying to find new medicines to fight HIV. The five most important HIV medicines are:

D4T (stavudine)
3TC (Lamivudine)
NVP (nevirapine)
AZT (zidovudine)
EFZ (efavirenz)