Psychology & Psychiatry

Hearing impairment may lead to depression, isolation, dementia

If you've ever found yourself repeating parts of a conversation for an older person or walking into a room where they've turned the TV up full blast, you might have discovered more than just a typical byproduct of aging.

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.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Hepatitis E vaccination campaign launched in South Sudan: MSF

Doctors Without Borders announced Wednesday that it had begun a mass vaccination campaign against hepatitis E in South Sudan, where an outbreak of the deadly disease is threatening pregnant women in particular.

Health

Insurance doesn't always cover hearing aids for kids

Joyce Shen was devastated when doctors said her firstborn, Emory, hadn't passed her newborn hearing screening. Emory was diagnosed with profound sensorineural hearing loss in both ears as an infant, meaning sounds are extremely ...

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AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

This condition progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors. HIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk.

This transmission can involve anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.

AIDS is now a pandemic. In 2007, it was estimated that 33.2 million people lived with the disease worldwide, and that AIDS had killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children. Over three-quarters of these deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, retarding economic growth and destroying human capital.

Genetic research indicates that HIV originated in west-central Africa during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. AIDS was first recognized by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981 and its cause, HIV, identified in the early 1980s.

Although treatments for AIDS and HIV can slow the course of the disease, there is currently no vaccine or cure. Antiretroviral treatment reduces both the mortality and the morbidity of HIV infection, but these drugs are expensive and routine access to antiretroviral medication is not available in all countries. Due to the difficulty in treating HIV infection, preventing infection is a key aim in controlling the AIDS pandemic, with health organizations promoting safe sex and needle-exchange programmes in attempts to slow the spread of the virus.

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