Medications

How a novel drug pushes the HIV capsid to breaking point

Just over a year ago, the European Union and the US Food and Drug Administration approved a new anti-retroviral drug to treat human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections. Lenacapavir is the first drug available to patients ...

HIV & AIDS

Scientists see an ultra-fast movement on surface of HIV virus

As the HIV virus glides up outside a human cell to dock and possibly inject its deadly cargo of genetic code, there's a spectacularly brief moment in which a tiny piece of its surface snaps open to begin the process of infection.

HIV & AIDS

Researchers pinpoint most likely source of HIV rebound infection

In findings that have implications for potential new HIV therapies, researchers from Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) used genetic sequencing techniques on the nonhuman primate version of the virus to identify ...

Medical research

How does HIV get into the cell's center to kickstart infection?

UNSW medical researcher Dr. David Jacques and his team have discovered how the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) breaches the cell nucleus to establish infection, a finding that has implications beyond HIV biology.

Medical research

HIV: Early treatment is one key to remission

People living with HIV need to take antiretroviral treatment for life to prevent the virus from multiplying in their body. But some people, known as "post-treatment controllers," have been able to discontinue their treatment ...

HIV & AIDS

Researchers identify novel factor in HIV transmission

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have found long-sought answers to questions about HIV transmission, and those findings could lead to new ways to prevent the disease's spread.

page 1 from 40

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus (a member of the retrovirus family) that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in humans in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections. Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells. The four major routes of transmission are unsafe sex, contaminated needles, breast milk, and transmission from an infected mother to her baby at birth (Vertical transmission). Screening of blood products for HIV has largely eliminated transmission through blood transfusions or infected blood products in the developed world.

HIV infection in humans is now pandemic. From 1981 to 2006, AIDS killed more than 25 million people. HIV infects about 0.6 percent of the world's population. In 2005 alone, AIDS claimed an estimated 2.4–3.3 million lives, of which more than 570,000 were children. A third of these deaths are occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, retarding economic growth and increasing poverty. According to current estimates, HIV is set to infect 90 million people in Africa, resulting in a minimum estimate of 18 million orphans. Antiretroviral treatment reduces both the mortality and the morbidity of HIV infection, but routine access to antiretroviral medication is not available in all countries.

HIV primarily infects vital cells in the human immune system such as helper T cells (specifically CD4+ T cells), macrophages, and dendritic cells. HIV infection leads to low levels of CD4+ T cells through three main mechanisms: firstly, direct viral killing of infected cells; secondly, increased rates of apoptosis in infected cells; and thirdly, killing of infected CD4+ T cells by CD8 cytotoxic lymphocytes that recognize infected cells. When CD4+ T cell numbers decline below a critical level, cell-mediated immunity is lost, and the body becomes progressively more susceptible to opportunistic infections.

Eventually most HIV-infected individuals develop AIDS. These individuals mostly die from opportunistic infections or malignancies associated with the progressive failure of the immune system. Without treatment, about 9 out of every 10 persons with HIV will progress to AIDS after 10–15 years. Many progress much sooner. Treatment with anti-retrovirals increases the life expectancy of people infected with HIV. Even after HIV has progressed to diagnosable AIDS, the average survival time with antiretroviral therapy (as of 2005) is estimated to be more than 5 years. Without antiretroviral therapy, death normally occurs within a year.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA