HIV/AIDS
What is HIV? 'HIV' stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
HIV attacks the body's immune system, reducing its ability to fight off infections.
It does this by infecting white blood cells (CD4 cells), which are responsible for engaging the immune system when infections enter the body.
What is AIDS? One of the effects that HIV causes is Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Although people with HIV can live for many years without major negative health effects, their weakened immune system leaves them very vulnerable to infections. When someone with HIV succumbs to another infection, the onset of AIDS is said to have occurred.
However, the term 'AIDS' is no longer widely used, according to the Terrence Higgins Trust. It is perhaps more commonly referred to, in medical circles at least, as 'late stage' or 'advanced HIV infection'.
BackgroundHIV became an issue of serious concern in the UK when it was first identified in the early 1980s.
The infection was particularly stigmatised when it was first discovered because the public didn't know how the disease was caught and what its consequences were. HIV/AIDS was initially thought to only infect homosexual men and drug users, complicating impartial debate, and a small minority claimed, and still claim, that the condition was a form of 'divine retribution'.
Since the disease was discovered, successive governments have funded public awareness and education campaigns to raise the profile and improve understanding of the illness. The HIV/AIDS campaigns of the 1980s led to a growth in public awareness of the importance of avoiding unsafe sex and to a lesser extent the use of 'dirty needles' - two of the principal means of transmission.
Safe sex and the development of antiretroviral therapies, which delay the onset of AIDs, have resulted in substantial reductions in AIDS incidence and deaths in the UK.
Controversies
In the developed world, HIV/AIDS is increasingly understood, avoidable and treatable - although it cannot yet be cured. The stigma once associated with the condition has also considerably reduced.
However, some parts of the developing world are experiencing an HIV/AIDS epidemic of horrifying proportions. Sub-Saharan Africa and, to a lesser but growing extent, parts of southern Asia have large proportions of their populations that are HIV positive.
These communities are some of the poorest in the world and many of those infected don't have access to effective HIV treatments. Some people argue that access to effective treatments is being hindered by some pharmaceutical companies demanding high prices for their treatments and preventing the reproduction of their drugs, under threat of legal action.
However, pharmaceutical companies say they are making their treatments available cheaply to the developing world. For example, five manufacturers of antiretroviral therapies and five manufacturers of HIV/AIDS diagnostic tests announced in April 2004 that they have agreed to make their products available to developing countries at the lowest prices, in many cases for more than fifty per cent less.
The HIV/AIDs problem in the developing world is exacerbated by low public awareness and standards of public health, religious injunctions against contraception in many areas and considerable levels of prejudice and stigma.
Statistics
In 2003, there were an estimated 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, over 95 per cent of these in resource poor (developing) countries.
Over 14,000 new infections are said to occur daily
In the UK approximately 49,500 people are living with HIV, about a third of whom are undiagnosed
Since the epidemic began in the early 1980s about 15,000 deaths in HIV infected individuals are known to have occurred in the UK
Since 1999 there have been more diagnoses of heterosexually acquired infection than infections acquired through sex between men
The male:female ratio for all new infections diagnosed in 1985/86 was approximately 14:1 whereas in 2000/01 it was about 7:1
Cumulatively around seven per cent percent of UK diagnoses were attributed to injecting drug use
Since records began, some 1,350 people in the UK have been reported as HIV infected through treatment with blood factor concentrates. However, there have been no recorded transmissions of HIV by this route in the UK since the introduction of heat inactivation of concentrates and donor screening in 1985
Statistics 1 and 2: (Source: WHO '3-5 strategy report', 2003); Other statistics: (Source: Health Protection Agency , 2003)
Quotes
"There is now a danger that is a threat to us all. It is a deadly disease and there is no known cure. The virus can be passed during sexual intercourse with an infected person. Anyone can get it: man or woman. So far it's been confined to small groups. But it's spreading. So protect yourself and read this leaflet when it arrives. If you ignore AIDS it could be the death of you so don't die of ignorance."
UK Government TV advert, 1986
"We must make people everywhere understand that the AIDS crisis is not over; that this is not about a few foreign countries, far away. This is a threat to an entire generation, it is a threat to an entire civilization..."
Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, 2003
"The fight against AIDS will indeed require another social revolution. Once more, the youth of our country are called upon to play a leading role in a social revolution, as they did so heroically in the revolutionary struggle against apartheid."
Nelson Mandela commenting on Aids in Africa Sept 2003