Michael Asmus

4. Presentation and Manifestation

     a. HIV/AIDS is a chronic disease because it is long-term, can have no visible symptoms, and will

never let a victim return to full health.8

     b. HIV/AIDS is very hard to catch if one takes sensible precautions, such as performing safe sex

and not sharing needles.1

     c. Some sufferers have flu-like symptoms that can last a few weeks, but some have no symptoms

at all.1

     d. Most HIV tests try to detect the antibodies that the body makes in response to being infected

by HIV. Some tests actually look for HIV proteins or genetic material directly.1

     e. The pathogen attacks and destroys the host's immune system over time. It is a virus that uses

the host's immune system for reproduction, so it forces the cells of the immune system to build

more viruses until the cells die of exhaustion.

5. Prevention and Cure

     a. There is no cure for HIV/AIDS. None. At all.1

     b. There are currently thirty-one antiretroviral drugs that have been approved by the FDA to treat

HIV/AIDS. None of them cure the disease, but they do suppress it and allow users to lead longer,

happier, healthier lives.10

     c. One man has been cured by a combination of chemotherapy and a transplant of naturally

resistant immune system cells. It shows that using stem cells as a cure is possible, but takes a lot of

effort and hardship on the part of the patient.11

     d. There are no alternative treatments that have as great an effect as Western medicine on its

own, but treatments such as acupuncture, herbal remedies, and other organic medicines have been

found to have some positive effects in conjunction with the Western medicine.12

6. Additional Research

     a. Does HIV/AIDS have a special stigma attached to it?

             Yes. It is mainly associated with unsafe sex (especially between gay men) and drug use,

which already have stigmas of their own in most countries. There is also a lot of inaccurate

information that creates misconceptions about personal risk of infection, so infected people can be

shunned.13

     b. When was the first successful medicine made specifically to treat this disease?

             The first successful treatment was invented in 1987, a drug known as AZT. While it was

found later to have no effect on the early stages of HIV infection, it did help in later stages and

reduced the chance of transmission from mother to child.