Little Known Facts About AIDS

Since 1981 the cases of HIV infection were found, the number of HIV infectious persons had shown a tremendous increase, and within a short period of 20 years, the AIDs epidemic has raged across the globe. It was reported that people who died of HIV has attained the figure of 30 million on November 29, 2007. China itself has more than 770,000 HIV infected people. In the record of the world's HIV infected persons, children who died on the cause of HIV was 640,000. In the United States, approximately 40,000 people were infected with HIV in 2003. In 1999 alone, 17,200 people in the United States died of AIDS, while in 2000, 15,300 HIV infected people have lost their lives. The officials from the United States Centre for Disease Control and Protection said that among the 900,000 HIV carriers in 2002, one fourth of them did not receive any treatments, and this means that more than 400,000 people in the United States were living with AIDS through sexual contact, sharing drug injection syringes, and some through the channels of HIV transmission.

Up to now, there is no cure for this deadly disease and thus HIV is always gained worldwide attention. In January, 1988, the World Health Organization (WHO) met in London with a participation of 140 countries to announce every first of December as the World's AIDS Day. In January, 1996, the United Nations AIDS Programmes (UNAIDS) was established in Geneva, and later the UNAIDS renamed "World's AIDS Day" as "World AIDS Campaign" to publicize AIDS prevention throughout the year. This day is important to alert people to control their personal desires via sexual intercourse, appreciate their lives besides educating people about the scariest facts of HIV. Red ribbon is a symbol for the World's AIDS Day.

Themes of the World's AIDS Day from the year of 1988 to 2007

1988: Join the Worldwide Effort
1989: Our Lives, Our World-Lets Take Care of Each Other
1990: Women and AIDS
1991: Sharing the Challenge
1992: A Community Commitment
1993: Time to Act
1994: AIDS and the Family
1995: Shared Rights, Shared Responsibilities
1996: One World. One Hope
1997: Children Living in a World with AIDS
1998: Force for Change: World AIDS Campaign with Young People
1999: Listen, Learn, Live!
2000: Men Make a Difference
2001: I Care. Do You?
2002: Live, Let Live
2003: Live, Let Live
2004: Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS.
2005: Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.
2006: Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.
2007: Stop AIDS, Keep the Promise

Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV

AIDS Virus (HIV model)

How does HIV Enter Human's Cell?

A model of HIV attacks the cell

HIV Infected Patient

Common Symptoms of AIDS

Many of the HIV-infected people do not have an obvious symptom, but some may have experienced fever, dizziness, sore throat, fatigue, rash, swollen lymph, diarrhea, joint pain and fatigue. Such symptoms usually last for one to two weeks. Nevertheless, some HIV-infected people may look like as ordinary people without showing any significant symptoms. The AIDS virus in their bodies will continue to damage the immune system causing relatively vulnerable defense ability towards diseases. This condition in turns may cause damage in the parts of brain, lungs, and gastrointestinal tracts. The damage of the nervous system is shown by the symptoms of dizziness, headache, slow impulse response, mental disorders, hemiplegia and dementia. Others may include inflammation and ulceration of oral and pharyngeal mucosa, skin lesions, histoplasmosis, pnenmocystsis carinii pneumonia and toxoplasmesis.

AIDS patients suffer from a disease of prurigo nodularis

Picture shows a 25-year-old female, who is a HIV positive carrier. She used to experience constant headache, fatigue, body itching, coughing, diarrhea, and weight loss of 18kg at the first year she was diagnosed for HIV positive. Her hips, legs are seriously infected with prurigo nodularis.

AIDS skin lesions

AIDS Kaposi's sarcoma

There will be a variety of malignant tumors grow gradually in the human's body. One of them is a Kaposi 's sarcoma with the skin surface appears red or purple and the growth of papules as well. ¾ of patients may have to suffer from anemia, the decline of platelet-leukocyte, T4 cell count less than 400mm3, and T4/T8 less than one.

HIV-infected patients may have long-term respiratory symptoms of severe coughing, chest pain and dyspnea. In the serious cases, their feces may contain large amount of blood. They may have to suffer for more than 10% of weight loss within three months and up to 40% of weight loss by the following months. This explains why HIV-infected patients appear skinny.

Conditions of AIDS Patients around the World

March, 2004

One of the AIDS patients in Thailand was taking medicine. At this moment, he was close to death.