Symptoms and Description of HIV/AIDS.

Essay by Pie7775Junior High, 9th grade December 2004

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Acquired immune deficiency syndrome, AIDS, causes the body's immune system to slowly weaken. When you get AIDS, the body slowly loses the number of antibodies, the cells which fight disease and infection. When you have AIDS you are much more likely to contract an additional deadly disease. AIDS has been said to be the equivalent of a plague from the past. While AIDS has been a major cause of death in males 20 to 40 it still can be prevented quite easily.

It is known that AIDS is contracted by having Human Immunodeficiency virus, HIV. AIDS first showed up in the United States in 1970s. In 1982, the Centers for Disease Control recognized AIDS as a disease. No one is sure who discovered the disease because both researchers at the Pasteur Institute in France and the National Cancer Institute in the United States each claimed to have discovered it. The origin of AIDS has been controversial.

The first cases of AIDS showed up in central Africa. Some people even believe that the U.S. government genetically engineered HIV to attack minority populations; there is no evidence to prove this belief.

When you become infected with HIV you don't instantly have AIDS. AIDS may not appear for a long time afterward. By definition you don't have AIDS until you have less than 2 million antibodies per cubic centimeter of blood. When you get AIDS can be affected by weight loss, fever, malaise, and anorexia. During early stages of AIDS they are very susceptible to infections. Most commonly these infections include herpes zoster, shingles, and a fungal disease called or candidiasis, thrush. Many men afflicted with AIDS suffer from Kaposi's sarcoma, a vascular tumor that can spread throughout the body.

A large number of the early victims of AIDS in the United States...