The spread of HIV/AIDS has affected millions of people around the world; AIDS is considered a pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that by 2016 there are 36.7 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, with 1.8 million new HIV infections per year and 1 million deaths due to AIDS. By 2016, UNAIDS estimates: 2.1 million children (& lt; 15 years) worldwide live with HIV/AIDS and 17.8 million women (15 years) worldwide live with HIV/AIDS. In 2011, UNAIDS estimated: 1.8 million new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa compared with 2.4 million new infections in 2001, a 25% reduction. Between 2005 and 2011, the number of AIDS-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa decreased 32%, 1.8 million to 1.2 million. From 2009 and 2011, the number of newly infected children fell in sub-Saharan Africa down 24%
Misconceptions about HIV and AIDS arise from several different sources, from simple ignorance and misconceptions about the scientific knowledge of HIV infection and the cause of AIDS for misinformation propagated by individuals and groups with ideological attitudes that deny causative relationships between HIV infection and AIDS progression. Below is a list and an explanation of some common misconceptions and their rebuttal.
Video Misconceptions about HIV/AIDS
Relationship between HIV and AIDS
HIV equals AIDS
HIV is an acronym for the human immunodeficiency virus, which is a virus that causes AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). Although the virus is the cause of AIDS, not all HIV-positive people have AIDS, because HIV can remain in a latent state for many years. If not diagnosed or not treated, HIV usually develops into AIDS, defined as having a CD4 lymphocyte count below 200 cells/l or HIV infection plus co-infection with an AIDS-defining opportunistic infection.
Maps Misconceptions about HIV/AIDS
Treatment
Cure
Highly Active Anti Retroviral Therapy (HAART) in many cases allows the stabilization of patient symptoms, partial recovery of CD4 T-cell levels, and decreased viremia (viremia level) to low or virtually undetectable levels. Drug-specific diseases can also relieve the symptoms of AIDS and even cure certain AIDS-defining conditions in some cases. Medical treatment can reduce HIV infection in many cases to chronic conditions that can survive. However, this progress is not a cure, as current treatment regimens can not eradicate latent HIV from the body.
High levels of HIV-1 (often resistant to antiretroviral therapy) develop if treatment is stopped, if treatment adherence is inconsistent, or if the virus spontaneously develops resistance to individual regimens. Antiretroviral treatment known as postexposure prophylaxis reduces the likelihood of contracting HIV infection when administered within 72 hours of exposure to HIV. These problems mean that while HIV-positive people with low viral load are less likely to infect others, the chances of transmission are always present. In addition, people taking ART may still be ill.
Sexual intercourse with a virgin will cure AIDS
The myth that sex with virgins will cure AIDS is prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. Sex with uninfected virgins does not cure people infected with HIV, and such contacts will expose uninfected individuals to HIV, potentially spreading the disease further. This myth has gained considerable fame as a perceived reason for certain sexual harassment and child abuse incidents, including infant rape, in Africa.
Sexual intercourse with animals will avoid or cure AIDS
In 2002, the National Association for the Prevention of Cruelty Animals (NSPCA) in Johannesburg, South Africa, noted trust among young people that sex with animals is a means to avoid AIDS or cure it if infected. As with the belief of "pure healing", there is no scientific evidence to suggest that sexual acts can actually cure AIDS, and there is no mechanism that can be used to do so. The risk of contracting HIV through sex with small animals, but this practice has its own health risks.
Unreliable HIV antibody test
The diagnosis of infection using antibody tests is a well established technique in medicine. HIV antibody tests outperformed most other infectious disease tests in both sensitivity (the ability of screening tests to provide positive findings when the person tested actually had the disease) and specificity (the ability of the test to provide negative findings when the subjects tested were free of the disease under study ). Many of today's HIV antibody tests have a sensitivity and specificity of over 96% and are therefore very reliable. While most patients with HIV show an antibody response after six weeks, the window period varies and can sometimes be for three months.
Advances in test methodologies have enabled the detection of genetic material of viruses, antigens, and viruses themselves in body fluids and cells. Although not widely used for routine testing due to the high costs and requirements in laboratory equipment, this direct testing technique has confirmed the validity of antibody tests.
Positive HIV antibody tests are usually followed up with retest and tests for antigen, virus genetic material and the virus itself, confirming the actual infection.
HIV infection
HIV can spread through casual contact with HIV-infected individuals
A person can not be infected with HIV through normal contact in the social, school, or workplace environment. A person can not be infected by shaking someone's hand, by hugging or "dry" kissing someone, using the same toilet or drinking from the same glass as an HIV-infected person, or by coughing or sneezing by an infected person. Saliva carries a viral load that can be ignored, so kissing with open mouth is considered low risk. However, if an infected partner or both have blood in their mouths due to injury, open sores, or gum disease, the risk is higher. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded only one case of possible transmission of HIV through a kiss (involving an HIV-infected man with significant gum disease and sexual partners as well as significant gum disease), and Terence Higgins Trust said this at essentially a riskless situation.
Other theoretical interactions can result in person-to-person transmission including nose bleeding and home health care procedures, but very few incidents are recorded to occur in these ways. A number of cases of transmission through bites have occurred, although this is very rare.
HIV-positive individuals can be detected by their appearance
Because of the media's overview of the impact of AIDS, many people believe that HIV-infected people always appear in a certain way, or at least look different from uninfected and healthy people. In fact, progression of the disease can occur in the long term before the onset of symptoms, and thus, HIV infection can not be detected based on appearance.
HIV can not be transmitted through oral sex
Contracting HIV through oral sex is not impossible, but much lower than from anal sex and sex with the penis.
HIV is transmitted by mosquitoes
When a mosquito bites someone, they do not inject the blood of the previous victim to the person they bite next. Mosquitoes inject their saliva into their victims, which can carry diseases such as dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, or West Nile virus and can infect people who are bitten with the disease. HIV is not transmitted in this way. On the other hand, mosquitoes may have HIV-infected blood in their intestines, and if they are tapped on human skin then scratch, hypothetical transmission is possible, although the risk is very small, and no cases have been identified. through this route.
HIV survives for only a short time outside the body
HIV can survive at room temperature outside the body for hours if it is dry (provided that the initial concentration is high), and for weeks if it is wet (in a syringe/used needle). However, the amount normally present in body fluids does not last long outside the body - generally no more than a few minutes if dry. Again, the amount of time is longer if wet, especially in needles/syringes and related equipment.
HIV can only infect homosexual men and drug users
Regardless of sexual orientation, HIV can be transmitted from one person to another if the partner involved is HIV positive. In the United States, the main route of infection is through homosexual anal sex, while for female transmission primarily through heterosexual contact. However, HIV can infect anyone regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. It is true that anal sex (regardless of receptive partner's sex) carries a higher risk of infection than most sex acts, but most penetrative sex acts between individuals carry some risk. Condoms used correctly can reduce this risk.
An HIV-infected mother can not have children
HIV-infected women remain fertile, although in the late stages of HIV disease, a pregnant woman may have a higher risk of miscarriage. Typically, the risk of HIV transmission to the fetus is between 15 and 30%. However, this can be reduced to only 2-3% if the patient carefully follows the medical guidelines.
HIV can not be the cause of AIDS because the body develops a strong antibody response against the virus
This reason ignores many examples of viruses other than HIV that can be pathogenic after evidence of immunity arises. Measles viruses can survive for years in brain cells, eventually leading to chronic neurological disease despite antibodies. Viruses like Cytomegalovirus , Herpes simplex virus , and Varicella zoster can be activated after years of latent even in the presence of abundant antibodies. In other animals, viral relatives of HIV with long, varied latent periods, such as visceral virus in sheep, cause central nervous system damage even after antibody production.
HIV has a recognized capacity to mutate to avoid the ongoing immune response of the host.
Only a small number of CD4 T-cells are infected by HIV, not enough to damage immune system
Although the HIV-infected CD4 T-cell fraction at a given time is never high (only a few active cells serve as an ideal target of infection), some groups have shown that the rapid death cycle from infected cells and new target cell infections travel disease. Macrophages and other cell types are also infected with HIV and serve as reservoirs for the virus.
Furthermore, like other viruses, HIV is able to suppress the immune system by removing the disturbing protein. For example, HIV mantle protein, gp120, a warehouse of viral particles and bind to CD4 receptors of healthy T cells; this interferes with the normal functioning of these signaling receptors. Another HIV protein, Tat, has been shown to suppress T cell activity.
Infected lymphocytes express Fas ligand, a cell surface protein that triggers an adjacent non-infected T cell death that expresses the Fas receptor. This "bystander killing" effect indicates that great danger can occur in the immune system even with a number of infected cells.
History of HIV/AIDS
The current consensus is that HIV was introduced to North America by Haitian immigrants who contracted it while working in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the early 1960s, or from others who worked there during that time.
The origin of AIDS through human-monkey sexual relations
While HIV is most likely a mutated form of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a disease that exists only in African chimpanzees and monkeys, a very plausible explanation for the transfer of diseases between species (zoonoses) does not involve sexual intercourse. In particular, African chimpanzees and monkeys carrying SIV are often hunted for food, and epidemiologists theorize that the disease may appear in humans after hunters come to blood contact with infected SIV monkeys they have killed. The first known HIV sample in humans was found in a person who died in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1959, and a recent study shows the last ancestors of HIV and SIV between 1884 and 1914 using a molecular clock approach..
Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield became the subject of controversy in 2012 after stating that AIDS is the result of a man who has sex with a monkey.
AIDS denialism
There is no AIDS in Africa, because AIDS is nothing more than a new name for the old disease
Diseases associated with AIDS in Africa, such as cachexia, diarrhea and tuberculosis have long been a heavy burden there. However, the high mortality rate of this disease, previously restricted to the elderly and malnourished, is now common among young and middle-aged people infected with HIV, including members of a highly educated middle class.
For example, in a study at CÃÆ'Â'te d'Ivoire, HIV-seropositive people with pulmonary tuberculosis were 17 times more likely to die within six months than HIV-seronegative people with pulmonary tuberculosis. In Malawi, three years of mortality among children who have received recommended childhood immunizations and who survived in the first year of life were 9.5 times higher among HIV-seropositive children than among children, children who are HIV-seronegative. The main causes of death are waste and respiratory conditions. Elsewhere in Africa, the findings are similar. HIV & amp;
There is broad scientific consensus that HIV is the cause of AIDS, but some individuals reject this consensus, including biologist Peter Duesberg, biochemist David Rasnick, journalist/activist Celia Farber, conservative author Tom Bethell, and intelligent design advocate Phillip E. Johnson. (Some skeptics have since rejected the rejection of AIDS, including physiologist Robert Root-Bernstein, and AIDS physician and researcher Joseph Sonnabend.)
Much is known about the pathogenesis of HIV disease, although important details remain to be explained. However, a complete understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease is not a prerequisite for knowing the cause. Most infectious agents have been associated with the disease that caused it long before their pathogenic mechanism was discovered. Because research in pathogenesis is difficult when appropriate animal models are not available, the mechanisms causing disease in many diseases, including tuberculosis and hepatitis B, are poorly understood, but responsible pathogens are well established.
Most people with AIDS have never received antiretroviral drugs, including those in developed countries prior to AZT licensing in 1987. Even today, very few people in developing countries have access to these drugs.
In the 1980s, clinical trials enrolling patients with AIDS found that AZT given as a single drug therapy gave modest (and short-lived) survival benefits compared with placebo. Among HIV-infected patients who have not developed AIDS, placebo-controlled trials have found that AZT is given as a single delayed drug therapy, for one or two years, the onset of AIDS-related illness. The lack of excessive AIDS cases and deaths in the AZT arm from this placebo-controlled trial effectively responds to the argument that AZT causes AIDS.
Subsequent clinical trials found that patients who received a combination of two drugs had up to 50% increased time to progress to AIDS and survival when compared to people who received single drug therapy. In recent years, three-drug combination therapy has resulted in another 50-80% increase in progression to AIDS and survival when compared to a two-drug regimen in clinical trials. The use of potent anti-HIV combination therapy has contributed to a dramatic decline in AIDS-related death incidents and AIDS in populations where these drugs are widely available, the unlikely effect if antiretroviral drugs are causing AIDS.
Behavioral factors such as drug use and multiple sexual partners of HIV --No - accounts for AIDS
The causes of proposed AIDS behaviors, such as many sexual partners and long-term drug use, have been around for years. The AIDS epidemic, characterized by previous opportunistic infections such as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), did not occur in the United States until an unknown human retrovirus - HIV - spread through a particular community.
Convincing evidence on the hypothesis that behavioral factors lead to AIDS stems from recent studies that have followed long-term homosexual male cohorts and found that only HIV-seropositive men develop AIDS. For example, in a prospectively researched cohort in Vancouver, British Columbia, 715 homosexual men were followed for an average of 8.6 years. Among 365 HIV positive people, 136 developed AIDS. There is no AIDS-defining illness that occurs among 350 seronegative men, despite the fact that these people report the use of inhaled nitrite ("poppers") and other recreational drugs, and receptive anal intercourse (Schechter et al., 1993).
Other studies have shown that among homosexual men and injecting drug users, the specific immune deficit leading to AIDS - progressive and sustained loss of CD4 T cells - is very rare in the absence of other immunosuppressive conditions. For example, in the Cohort AIDS Multicenter Study, more than 22,000 T cell determinations in 2,713 HIV seronegative homosexual men revealed only one individual with a CD4 T-cell count that was constantly lower than 300 cells/ml of blood, and this person received immunosuppressive therapy.
In a survey of 229 HIV seronegative injecting drug users in New York City, the average number of CD4 T cells from the group consistently exceeded 1000 cells/ml of blood. Only two people who had two CD4 T-cell measurements less than 300/Âμl of blood, one of whom died with heart disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were listed as the cause of death.
AIDS among transfusion recipients is due to underlying disease that requires a transfusion, instead of HIV
This notion is contrary to a report by the Transfusion Safety Study Group (TSSG), which compares HIV-negative and HIV-positive blood recipients who have been given blood transfusions for similar diseases. About 3 years after blood transfusion, the average T-cell CD4 count in 64 HIV-negative recipients was 850/Âμl of blood, while 111 HIV-seropositive men had an average T-cell count of 375/Âμl of blood. In 1993, there were 37 AIDS cases in the HIV-infected group, but there was no AIDS-defining illness in HIV-seronegative transfusion recipients.
The use of clotting factor concentrates, not HIV is high, leading to CD4 T-cell depletion and AIDS in hemophiliacs
This view contradicts many studies. For example, among HIV-seronegative patients with hemophilia A enrolled in the Transfusion Safety Study, there were no significant differences in the number of recorded CD4 T cells among 79 patients with no or with minimal treatment factors and 52 with the largest number of lifetime treatments. Patients in both groups had CD4 T cell counts in the normal range. In another report of the Transfusion Safety Study, no example of AIDS-defining illness was seen among 402 seronegative hemophilia patients who had received factortherapy.
In a cohort in the UK, researchers matched 17 HIV-seropositive hemophilia with 17 HIV-seronegative hemophilia associated with the use of clotting factor concentrates over a ten-year period. During this time, 16 AIDS-defining clinical events occurred in 9 patients, all HIV-seropositive. There is no AIDS-defining illness that occurs among HIV-negative patients. In each pair, the median T-cell CD4 count during follow-up averaged 500 cells/ml was lower in HIV-seropositive patients.
Among HIV-infected hemophilia, Transfoam Transfusion Study researchers found that both the purity and the amount of factor VIII therapy had a damaging effect on CD4 T-cell counts. Similarly, the Multicenter Hemophilia Cohort Study found no association between the cumulative dose of plasma concentrates and the incidence of AIDS among HIV-infected hemophilia.
Distribution of HIV as the cause of AIDS dubious. Viruses are not gender specific, but only a small proportion of AIDS cases among women
The distribution of AIDS cases, whether in the United States or elsewhere in the world, always reflects the prevalence of HIV in a population. In the United States, HIV first appeared in a population of injecting drug users (the majority of whom were men) and gay men. HIV is spread primarily through unprotected sex, needle exchange contaminated with HIV, or cross-contamination of infected drug and blood solution during intravenous drug use. Because these behaviors show a sex bias - Western men are more likely to take illegal drugs intravenously than Western women, and men are more likely to report higher levels of risky sex behavior, such as unprotected anal intercourse - it is not surprising that the majority of US AIDS cases has occurred in men.
Women in the United States, however, are increasingly becoming infected with HIV, usually through the exchange of needles contaminated with HIV or sex with HIV-infected men. CDC estimates that 30 percent of new HIV infections in the United States in 1998 were in women. As the number of HIV-infected women increases, so does the number of female AIDS patients in the United States. About 23% of US adult/adult AIDS cases reported to CDC in 1998 were among women. In 1998, AIDS was the leading cause of fifth death among women aged 25 to 44 in the United States, and the third leading cause of death among African-American women in that age group.
In Africa, HIV was first recognized in sexually active heterosexuals, and AIDS cases in Africa have occurred at least as often in women as in men. Overall, the worldwide distribution of HIV and AIDS infections between men and women is about 1 in 1. In sub-Saharan Africa, 57% of adults with HIV are women, and young women aged 15 to 24 are more than three times more probably to be infected as a young man.
HIV is not the cause of AIDS as many people with HIV have not developed AIDS
HIV infection has a long and varied journey. The median time interval between HIV infection and clinically apparent disease onset was about 10 years in industrialized countries, according to a prospective homosexual male study in which seroconversion dates are known. Similar estimates of the asymptomatic period have been made for recipients of HIV-infected blood transfusions, injecting drug users and adult hemophilia.
As with many diseases, a number of factors can influence the course of HIV disease. Factors such as age or genetic differences between individuals, the level of virulence of individual virus strains, as well as exogenous influences such as co-infection with other microbes may determine the rate and severity of HIV disease expression. Similarly, some people infected with hepatitis B, for example, have no symptoms or only jaundice and clear their infection, while others suffer from diseases ranging from chronic liver inflammation to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Co-factors probably also determine why some smokers develop lung cancer while others do not.
HIV does not cause AIDS because some people have symptoms associated with AIDS but uninfected
Most AIDS symptoms result from the development of opportunistic infections and cancers associated with severe immunosuppresion secondary to HIV.
However, immunosuppression has many other potential causes. Individuals who take glucocorticoids or immunosuppressive drugs to prevent transplant rejection or to treat autoimmune diseases may increase susceptibility to unusual infections, as do individuals with certain genetic conditions, malnutrition and some cancers. There is no evidence to suggest that the number of such cases has increased, while abundant epidemiological evidence has shown a huge increase in immunosuppression cases among individuals sharing a characteristic: HIV infection.
AIDS-related diseases, such as Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (PCP) and Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), are not caused by HIV, but are the result of immunosuppression caused by HIV disease. Because the immune system of HIV-infected individuals weakens, it becomes susceptible to certain common viral, fungal, and bacterial infections common in the community. For example, people infected with HIV in the Western United States are much more likely than people in New York City to develop histoplasmosis, caused by fungi. Someone in Africa is exposed to different pathogens from individuals in American cities. Children may be exposed to different infectious agents from adults.
HIV is the underlying cause of a condition called AIDS, but additional conditions that may affect AIDS patients depend on the endemic pathogens that the patient may be exposed to.
AIDS can be prevented by complementary or alternative medicine
Many HIV-infected people turn to complementary and alternative medicine, such as traditional medicine, especially in areas where conventional therapy is less widespread. However, the majority of rigorous scientific studies show little or negative effects on patient outcomes such as the severity of HIV symptoms and duration of disease, and mixed results on psychological well-being. It is important that patients notify their health care providers before starting any treatment, as certain alternative therapies can interfere with conventional treatment.
See also
- International AIDS Society
- Safe sex
- Contaminated hemophilia blood products
- HIV/AIDS Prevention
References
External links
- AIDS.gov - US Federal Domestic HIV/AIDS Source A.
- HIV Basics at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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