Aids 101- What You Absolutely Need To Know

Introduction

Due both to the stigma and the awareness program attached with it, now AIDS has become a common household term. There are very less people who actually know that the exact word is Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS in short. Because of the morbidity and mortality attached and also because of the ignorance about it there are lots and lots of myths against this deadly disease. This alone shows the anxiety and concern of the general mass.

History

The virus for this disease is thought to have transmitted from simian monkeys in the forests of Africa to humans and from there it traveled to USA and different countries. It was brewing in the bodies till in 1981 in USA the Center for Disease Control and prevention (CDC) recognized it for the first time and reported that there was an unexplained occurrence of an unusual pneumonia in a few homosexuals. Soon the disease was to be found in intravenous drug users. But it was only in 1983 that the causative virus was isolated from a patient and then further classified. Obviously because of the ignorance initially the information was confined to only certain specific institutions in the early 1980s. Then as the disease became more prevalent and showed its mortality pattern more and more people became aware of this disease. Today it