AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) is one of the worst pandemics the world has ever known. HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the virus that causes AIDS, was first discovered in 1981 and it has since swept across the globe, infecting millions in a relatively short period of time. AIDS has killed 28.1 million people that we know of, with 3 million people dying in the year 2002 alone. Clearly the AIDS pandemic has had, and will continue to have, a significant and global impact.
What HIV does is invades the cells of our immune system and reprogram the cells to become HIV-producing factories. Slowly the number of immune cells in the body deteriorates, and AIDS develops. Once AIDS manifests, a person is susceptible to many different infections, because the immune system has been weakened so much by the HIV it can no longer fight back effectively. HIV has also shown the ability to mutate, which makes treating the virus nearly impossible.
A person can carry and transmit the......
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