The Stages Of Hiv And Aids - 1520 Words

HIV and AIDS are often thought of as the same thing but in actuality, they are two different illnesses. HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. HIV weakens a person’s immune system by destroying important cells, mainly CD4 also known as T-cells, that fight disease and infection. If HIV is left untreated, it can lead to AIDS. AIDS or Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome is the ultimatum condition when HIV is left untreated and is the most dangerous and life-threatening disease derived from it. There are three stages of HIV: The early stage, The clinical latency stage, and the late stage which is AIDS. According to The Foundation for AIDS Research, â€Å"nearly 37 million people are now living with HIV and 1.2 million people died from AIDS in†¦show more content†¦From that time and up until the 1980s, HIV was still unknown so there isn’t much data on how many people were affected back then as well as signs and symptoms. With the data, we currently have it sug gests that this epidemic started in the mid to late 1970s and by 1980, HIV was probably already spread over the five continents (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Australia). (Avert.org) In 1981, there was a case of a rare lung infection called Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) that was found in five young, healthy gay men in Los Angeles. PCP is an opportunistic infection that is commonly linked with HIV and is the most common AIDS-defining illness. At the same time, there were also other reports of groups of men in New York and California with an unusually aggressive cancer called Kaposi Sarcoma. Kaposi Sarcoma is a cancer of various different types but the most common type of KS in the United States is the â€Å"AIDS-related KS†. This one, in particular, develops in people who are infected with HIV. Symptoms can include lesions, rashes, lumps, ulcers, tumors, coughing, and many more. (Avert.org) By the end of 1981, there were about 270 reported cases of AIDS among homosexual men and around 45 percent of the them died. This created a theory among people that only homosexuals could contract these illnesses and in 1982, it was initially called gay-related immune deficiency (GRID) but later renamed to what we know now as Acquired immune deficiency