Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a condition that gradually destroys the body's immune defense system and makes the body vulnerable to opportunistic diseases. It is caused by infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). After HIV invades the body, it lives and multiplies in the white blood cells, which are the cells that protect the body from disease. As the virus multiplies, it damages or kills these and other cells, and the body becomes prey to a wide range of disease-causing microbes. When HIV has destroyed enough white blood cells, the body is no longer able to fight off many infections, and a person begins to get sick. If a person with HIV infection has not had many white cells die, that person feels fine and looks fine. That person is asymptomatic (that is, has no symptoms of AIDS), but can still give the virus to someone else. People who are infected with HIV can be asymptomatic, looking and feeling well for ten years or even longer. That is why the practice of safer sex is vitally important, even with people who seem to be well. As more and more white cells die, the HIV-infected person begins to get sick and is then said to be symptomatic. When there are very few white cells left, particularly of the kind called CD4+, and one or more serious diseases start occurring, the HIV-infected person has AIDS.
As of today, millions of Indians have been diagnosed with AIDS; millions have died. In less than 15 years, AIDS has become the principal killer of all Indians between the ages of 15 and 49. It has also been found recently that Indians do not have genetic protection against the AIDS virus compared to other groups, especially the southern population (Haplogroup L, 50% in South India, 15% elsewhere and in Pakistan). This means that they get infected more easily compared to other groups. Since the epidemic began, an estimated 20 million people worldwide have been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
People infected with HIV are our friends and neighbors; they are people in our offices and schools, temples, churches and mosques. They are our children, our parents, our brothers and sisters. They live in every state and community in our nation. Everyone needs to know about AIDS because it waits at everyone's door. Each of us must learn how to prevent infection with HIV, how to support the people around us who are HIV-infected, and how to make sure that our national, state, and local governments deal sensibly with this insidious disease. Hiding behind the veils of cultural superiority or karma is not an option; AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease and has to be tackled accordingly.
- by having sex without a condom with someone who is infected;
- by injecting drugs with needles you are sharing with someone who is infected;
- by having a blood transfusion with blood from an infected donor. However, blood donated for trans-fusions in is now tested for HIV, so people are almost never infected through blood transfusions.
For someone to get infected with HIV, the virus must get past the skin into the body. A person can let that happen in one of three ways:
Millions of people in the world have been infected with HIV, so by now we would know if there were any ways to get the infection other than through unprotected sex, shared needles, blood transfusions, or mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy, birth, or while breast feeding. Globally, most HIV infections have resulted from unprotected sex. In the United States, the shared use of contaminated needles for injecting drugs is responsible for a growing proportion of new infections. No one has ever been infected by a shared coffee cup, spoon, or fork, or by the use of a water fountain or a toilet seat. No one has ever been infected by a mosquito or another insect. No one has ever been infected by hugging people with AIDS or by eating dinner with them or by dancing with them or by keeping them company and listening when they need to talk to someonThere is a fourth way in which the virus can pass from one person to another: It can pass from an infected woman to her baby in the womb, during birth, or during breast feeding.
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