MA+HIV+Notes

3/31/08 HIV:
 * virus with no cure
 * Can get from needles
 * Weakens the immune system
 * Can get it from blood, breast milk, semen, and vaginal fluids
 * Condoms prevent transmission. Not 100% effective but close.
 * Get very skinny...because it decreases appetite
 * can't cure it but you can treat it
 * in us more males than females have it
 * in us more males have it due to homosexual sex the other reasons are needles
 * 1 million people in us live with HIV
 * sometimes people have it but don't know it...they are asymptomatic.
 * it's an std

Questions: How did it start? How long can someone live with HIV? What does HIV stand for? Is anyone working on a cure? What are they working on? What have they found? Has anyone been cured? How does the treatment help you and not cure you? What does the treatment do? What is the age of most people with HIV? Are the number of cases increasing or decreasing in the US? What are the side affects of the medicine? Is there medicine to help with the side affects? Is it legal to knowingly transmit HIV. What is the difference between HIV and Aids. Why does HIV affect our immune system? How do you know you have it?
 * We suspect that a chimp may have bitten or somehow blood was exchanged b/w the chimp and a human.
 * It depends, each person is different, depends on your access to treatment/biology. in the beginning people lived about 12 years now we don't know for sure....
 * human immunedeficiency virus
 * no they are not working on a cure...its a virus...can't cure a virus as far as we know...
 * no, but there are some people who have cells that can't be infected,
 * Take a bunch of drugs that stop the virus from copying itself. HIV has RNA and in order to copy itself it has to change RNA to DNA and they use drugs that restrict that.
 * Average age is 23
 * The number of cases is increasing
 * naseua
 * diarrhea
 * tiredness
 * head aches
 * skin rashes
 * problem with the nerves
 * yes
 * It is illegal to knowingly transmit HIV
 * HIV is the virus and aids is the condition.
 * it kills helper t cells
 * White blood cell count is too low, GET TESTED

Graph 1: Time(weeks or years) vs. Helper T Cells....

General Information:
 * Symptoms:**
 * Unusual cancer caused by viruses
 * pneumonia
 * digestive track gets infected...hard to absorb food...get very thin(wasting)
 * cause**:
 * 6 or 7 weeks after being infected you get a huge jump of how many copies are in your body.
 * Feels like the flu
 * Symptoms go down...stay Hiv positive for years...keeping the copies low
 * have aids if you have less than 200 helper t cells per ml of blood.
 * helper t cells help fight infection
 * Diseases:**

Diagnosis Transmission and Prevention Prognosis History
 * Treatment**
 * Treatment that slows virus: replication...copying
 * Study of Spread:**
 * Most spread of Aids is in the subsuharian africa.
 * .5-1% of Americans have Aids
 * greater than 15% of southern tip of Africa have aids
 * World: about half and half men to women with aids
 * 15 million women and 18 million men(2 million children)
 * Newly infected 2.5 mil
 * off 33 million 22 million are in subsuharan africa
 * nearly 6800 new infections a day....more than 96% are in low and middle income countries
 * Probably started in Africa
 * Similar Virus found in chimps in Africa-link b/w us and chimps...evolved from them to us
 * Started possibly with a chimp bite....killing a chimp for some reason
 * New disease...first case was reported in 1981...earlies known case was 1959...male living in africa
 * first cases in us were in homosexuals