Artifact #9
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has been traced back to Central Africa, where it was first though to come from chimpanzees to humans sometime in the 1800s. Chimpanzees have a similar disease called simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which humans came into contact with the chimp’s infected blood when they were hunting the animal for meat. The virus has been in the United States since at least the 1970s. HIV is transmitted from person to person through certain body fluids such as blood, semen, vaginal discharge, and breast milk. Ways you cannot get the virus are through sweat, saliva, tears, and urine. Once inside the body, the virus attacks your CD4 cells, or T cells. This cell is a type of white blood cell which plays a key role in your immune system. The cell also helps with your adaptive immunity and helps your body fight against pathogens. The virus not only causes the T cells to be less effective, but also uses them to make more of the virus. After the virus uses the T cell to replicate, the cell then bursts and dies. If a persons’ white blood cell count level drops below a certain level, then the person develops AIDS, which stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. This condition results from when the virus reaches a certain stage, and has done extensive damage to the immune system, to where it cannot fight pathogens off effectively. The person then develops what are known as opportunistic infections, such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. Types of cancer can also form due the immune system being weakened and not formed properly. Not always does a person progress to stage three of HIV and develop AIDS. There are three stages in total of the disease. Stage one is called Acute HIV infection. This a person develops flu-like symptoms two to four weeks after contracting the virus, which can last for weeks. This happens because it is the body’s response to fighting off the virus. Not everyone becomes sick if they contract the virus, either an antigen/antibody test or nucleic acid test (NAT) can tell if you have the virus or not. Stage 2 is called Clinical latency (HIV dormancy). This is when the person produces the virus at low rates, and may not feel any symptoms for years, decades or longer, and with medication the stage can be lengthened even further. This person can still transmit the disease though. At the end of the stage, the viral load goes up more rapidly, and the T cell count decreases. Stage three is last stage and is called acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. This is when the opportunistic illnesses start to arise due to the white blood cell count being below 200 while according to medicinenet.com the average persons’ count should be anywhere from 4,300 and 10,800 white blood cells. Other symptoms of AIDS include; chills, fever, weight loss, swollen lymph glands, and weakness. As of now, there is no cure for HIV, but the main medication being prescribed is called antiretroviral therapy (ART), which was first introduced in the 1990s, and before this medication, people could develop AIDS after the first few years of contracting HIV. There are many medications that must be taken in combination for this therapy to work, many of which are enzyme inhibitors so that the virus cannot make more of itself. This therapy has worked to the point of someone with HIV has such low levels of it, the person becomes undetectable. These treatments do have side effects, some which are easy to manage, some, such as kidney, liver, and nerve damage, depression and heart disease are some of the long-term effects and harder to manage. I am not trying to have this sound like a commercial, but I am trying to show that this treatment can effectively reduce the virus but can come with some serious side effects. In 2018, there were around 37.9 million people with HIV and of those people 23.3 million had access to ART, which is an increase of 1.6 million people from the year before. This is helping AIDS related deaths slow down, but the virus is still a pandemic.
Works cited:
https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/whatishiv.html
https://familydoctor.org/occupational-exposure-to-hiv-advice-for-health-care-workers/
https://www.healthline.com/health/hiv-aids/hiv-vs-aids#hiv-without-aids
https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=9983
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324013#types
https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/global-statistics