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Friday, September 05, 2008
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CONCLUSION
HIV and AIDS have been repeatedly linked
in time, place and population group; the appearance of HIV in the blood supply
has preceded or coincided with the occurrence of AIDS cases in every country and
region where AIDS has been noted. Among individuals without HIV, AIDS-like symptoms
are extraordinarily rare, even in populations with many AIDS cases. Individuals
as different as homosexual men, elderly transfusion recipients, heterosexual women,
drug-using heterosexual men and infants have all developed AIDS with only one
common denominator: infection with HIV. Laboratory workers accidentally exposed
to highly concentrated HIV and health care workers exposed to HIV-infected blood
have developed immunosuppression and AIDS with no other risk factor for immune
dysfunction. Scientists have now used PCR to find HIV in virtually every patient
with AIDS and to show that HIV is present in large and increasing amounts even
in the pre-AIDS stages of HIV disease. Researchers also have demonstrated a correlation
between the amount of HIV in the body and progression of the aberrant immunologic
processes seen in people with AIDS.
Despite this plethora of evidence,
the notion that HIV does not cause AIDS continues to find a wide audience in
the popular press, with potential negative impact on HIV-infected individuals
and on public health efforts to control the epidemic. HIV-infected individuals
may be convinced to forego anti-HIV treatments that can forestall the onset
of the serious infections and malignancies of AIDS (Edelman et al., 1991). Pregnant
HIV-infected women may dismiss the option of taking AZT, which can reduce the
likelihood of transmission of HIV from mother to infant (Connor et al., 1994;
Boyer et al., 1994).
People may be dissuaded from being
tested for HIV, thereby missing the opportunity, early in the course of disease,
for counselling as well as for treatment with drugs to prevent AIDS-related
infections such as PCP. Such prophylactic measures prolong survival and improve
the quality of life of HIV-infected individuals (CDC, 1992b).
Most troubling is the prospect that
individuals will discount the threat of HIV and continue to engage in risky
sexual behavior and needle sharing. If public health messages on AIDS prevention
are diluted by the misconception that HIV is not responsible for AIDS, otherwise
preventable cases of HIV infection and AIDS may occur, adding to the global
tragedy of the epidemic.
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