What is AIDS? AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. An HIV-infected person receives a diagnosis of AIDS after developing one of the AIDS-defining illnesses (e.g., Kaposi’s sarcoma, pneumocystis pneumonia, or histoplasmosis; Cleveland Clinic, 2021; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2019). These infections are known as opportunistic The history and origins of HIV and AIDS In the early 1980s, U.S. physicians noticed that a new disease was attacking patients’ immune systems. The cause was a mystery (Sepkowitz, 2001) until 1984, when scientists discovered HIV (History.com, 2021). The earliest apparently indisputable tissue samples containing HIV were taken in 1959 and 1960 in what is now HIV and AIDS statistics Approximately 1,189,700 people in the United States were living with HIV at the end of 2019, with approximately 30,635 new diagnoses in 2020. Of those people, about 87% knew they had HIV (CDC, 2022c; KFF, 2021). New infections According to the CDC (2022c), in 2020, 68% of all new U.S. HIV diagnoses were accounted for by men having sex with men, as compared with 22% resulting from heterosexual contact. Injection drug use alone accounted for 7%, and male-to-male sexual contact plus injection drug use accounted for the rest. The 2020 race/ethnicity breakdown for new HIV cases was approximately 42% Black/African American (though as of 2021 Black/African American people represent only 14.2% of the population; Moslimani et al., 2023), 27% Hispanic/ Latino, 26% Caucasian, 3% multiracial, 2% Asian, 1% American Indian/Alaska Native, and less than 1% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander. The most affected subpopulation was Black/African American gay and bisexual men. Symptoms of HIV infection The first stage of HIV infection is acute infection. About two to four weeks after infection, two-thirds of people will experience flu-like symptoms caused by the body’s immune system’s attempt to fight off the virus. The individual may experience chills and fever, muscle aches, and a sore throat. Other symptoms are night sweats, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, and mouth ulcers. Symptoms can last from days to several weeks, or a person may experience no symptoms at all (HIV.gov, 2022e). Symptoms of AIDS The third stage of HIV infection is AIDS, a stage that most patients in the United States no longer experience because of the treatments available. During this stage, people may experience: ● Rapid weight loss. ● Recurring fever or profuse night sweats. ● Extreme or unexplained fatigue. ● Prolonged swelling of lymph nodes. Transmission HIV is most commonly transmitted through: ● Sexual contact. ● Sharing of hypodermic needles. ● Pregnancy and childbirth, from mother to child. ● Accidental puncture from contaminated needles, broken glass, or other sharps.
infections because they take the opportunity of a weakened immune system to cause illness. Today, medical treatments can stop HIV from developing into AIDS. Other treatments can prevent or cure some of the illnesses associated with AIDS. Early detection offers more options for treatment and preventative care. known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, the genetic diversity in the virus at that time indicates that the disease had probably already been in the human population for a while. The virus has existed in the United States since at least the mid to late 1970s (CDC, 2022a; Worobey et al., 2008). In 2020, people aged 13 to 24 were especially affected by HIV, accounting for 20% of all new diagnoses. Young gay and bisexual men accounted for 84% of all new cases in that age group. The highest rates of new infection have continued to occur in the South. Since the beginning of this epidemic, more than 700,000 AIDS-related deaths have been reported in the United States (HIV.gov, 2022a). In 2019, HIV was the 10th leading cause of death for Americans aged 25 to 34 (CDC, 2023a). In 2020, 38.4 million people were living with HIV worldwide. In 2021, approximately 1.5 million people acquired HIV, which was a decline of 32% in new infections since 2010 (HIV.gov, 2022b). Worldwide, AIDS-related deaths have declined by 68% since 2004. In 2021, 650,000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses, as compared with 2,000,000 in 2004 (HIV.gov, 2023a). According to a 2019 report, sub-Saharan Africa had two thirds of all people in the world who were living with HIV. The next hardest hit areas were Asia and the Pacific (KFF, 2022). While one part of the immune system (the innate immune response) is causing flu-like symptoms, another part (the adaptive immune system) is gearing up and beginning to produce antibodies. These are proteins that bind to the invaders to neutralize them (National Genome Research Institute, 2023). When a detectable number of antibodies begin circulating in the patient’s blood, the person is said to have experienced seroconversion (Wysong, 2022). During the second stage, clinical latency, which may last for a decade or more without treatment, people experience no symptoms. ● Chronic diarrhea. ● Sores of the mouth, anus, or genitalia. ● Pneumonia. ● Neurological disorders. (HIV.gov, 2022e) Many of the symptoms are caused by opportunistic infections.
● Contact between broken or damaged skin and infected body fluids. ● Contact between mucous membranes and infected body fluids.
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