The examples and perspective in this Show heavy US bias, the global scope or Africa is barely mentioned may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(April 2020) |
This is a timeline of HIV/AIDS , including but not limited to cases before 1980.
Researchers estimate that some time in the early 20th century, a form of Simian immunodeficiency virus found in chimpanzees (SIVcpz) first entered humans in Central Africa and began circulating in Léopoldville (modern-day Kinshasa) by the 1920s. [1] [2] [3] This gave rise to the pandemic form of HIV (HIV-1 group M); other zoonotic transmissions led to the other, less prevalent, subtypes of HIV. [3] [4]
2012
The Duesberg hypothesis is the claim that AIDS is not caused by HIV, but instead that AIDS is caused by noninfectious factors such as recreational and pharmaceutical drug use and that HIV is merely a harmless passenger virus. The hypothesis was popularized by Peter Duesberg, a professor of biology at University of California, Berkeley, from whom the hypothesis gets its name. The scientific consensus is that the Duesberg hypothesis is incorrect and that HIV is the cause of AIDS. The most prominent supporters of the hypothesis are Duesberg himself, biochemist and vitamin proponent David Rasnick, and journalist Celia Farber. The scientific community generally contends that Duesberg's arguments in favor of the hypothesis are the result of cherry-picking predominantly outdated scientific data and selectively ignoring evidence that demonstrates HIV's role in causing AIDS.
The spread of HIV/AIDS has affected millions of people worldwide; AIDS is considered a pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in 2016 there were 36.7 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, with 1.8 million new HIV infections per year and 1 million deaths due to AIDS. Misconceptions about HIV and AIDS arise from several different sources, from simple ignorance and misunderstandings about scientific knowledge regarding HIV infections and the cause of AIDS to misinformation propagated by individuals and groups with ideological stances that deny a causative relationship between HIV infection and the development of AIDS. Below is a list and explanations of some common misconceptions and their rebuttals.
Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is the ninth known human herpesvirus; its formal name according to the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) is Human gammaherpesvirus 8, or HHV-8 in short. Like other herpesviruses, its informal names are used interchangeably with its formal ICTV name. This virus causes Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer commonly occurring in AIDS patients, as well as primary effusion lymphoma, HHV-8-associated multicentric Castleman's disease and KSHV inflammatory cytokine syndrome. It is one of seven currently known human cancer viruses, or oncoviruses. Even after many years since the discovery of KSHV/HHV8, there is no known cure for KSHV associated tumorigenesis.
An opportunistic infection is an infection caused by pathogens that take advantage of an opportunity not normally available. These opportunities can stem from a variety of sources, such as a weakened immune system, an altered microbiome, or breached integumentary barriers. Many of these pathogens do not necessarily cause disease in a healthy host that has a non-compromised immune system, and can, in some cases, act as commensals until the balance of the immune system is disrupted. Opportunistic infections can also be attributed to pathogens which cause mild illness in healthy individuals but lead to more serious illness when given the opportunity to take advantage of an immunocompromised host.
AIDS-defining clinical conditions is the list of diseases published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that are associated with AIDS and used worldwide as a guideline for AIDS diagnosis. CDC exclusively uses the term AIDS-defining clinical conditions, but the other terms remain in common use.
AIDS is caused by a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which originated in non-human primates in Central and West Africa. While various sub-groups of the virus acquired human infectivity at different times, the present pandemic had its origins in the emergence of one specific strain – HIV-1 subgroup M – in Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo in the 1920s.
WHO Disease Staging System for HIV Infection and Disease in Adults and Adolescents was first produced in 1990 by the World Health Organization and updated in September 2005. It is an approach for use in resource limited settings and is widely used in Africa and Asia and has been a useful research tool in studies of progression to symptomatic HIV disease.
The CDC Classification System for HIV Infection is the medical classification system used by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to classify HIV disease and infection. The system is used to allow the government to handle epidemic statistics and define who receives US government assistance.
Primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) is classified as a diffuse large B cell lymphoma. It is a rare malignancy of plasmablastic cells that occurs in individuals that are infected with the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus. Plasmablasts are immature plasma cells, i.e. lymphocytes of the B-cell type that have differentiated into plasmablasts but because of their malignant nature do not differentiate into mature plasma cells but rather proliferate excessively and thereby cause life-threatening disease. In PEL, the proliferating plasmablastoid cells commonly accumulate within body cavities to produce effusions, primarily in the pleural, pericardial, or peritoneal cavities, without forming a contiguous tumor mass. In rare cases of these cavitary forms of PEL, the effusions develop in joints, the epidural space surrounding the brain and spinal cord, and underneath the capsule which forms around breast implants. Less frequently, individuals present with extracavitary primary effusion lymphomas, i.e., solid tumor masses not accompanied by effusions. The extracavitary tumors may develop in lymph nodes, bone, bone marrow, the gastrointestinal tract, skin, spleen, liver, lungs, central nervous system, testes, paranasal sinuses, muscle, and, rarely, inside the vasculature and sinuses of lymph nodes. As their disease progresses, however, individuals with the classical effusion-form of PEL may develop extracavitary tumors and individuals with extracavitary PEL may develop cavitary effusions.
Yuan Chang is a Taiwanese-born American virologist and pathologist who co-discovered together with her husband, Patrick S. Moore, the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) and Merkel cell polyomavirus, two of the seven known human oncoviruses.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. It is a preventable disease. There is no vaccine or cure for HIV. It can be managed with treatment and become a manageable chronic health condition. While there is no cure or vaccine, antiretroviral treatment can slow the course of the disease and enable people living with HIV to lead long and healthy lives. An HIV-positive person on treatment can expect to live a normal life, and die with the virus, not of it. Effective treatment for HIV-positive people involves a life-long regimen of medicine to suppress the virus, making the viral load undetectable. Without treatment it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
HIV/AIDS was recognised as a novel illness in the early 1980s. An AIDS case is classified as "early" if the death occurred before 5 June 1981, when the AIDS epidemic was formally recognized by medical professionals in the United States.
Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP), also known as Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PJP), is a form of pneumonia that is caused by the yeast-like fungus Pneumocystis jirovecii.
Robert Lee Rayford, sometimes identified as Robert R. due to his age, was an American teenager from Missouri who has been suggested to represent the earliest confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America. This is based on evidence published in 1988 in which the authors claimed that medical evidence indicated that he was "infected with a virus closely related or identical to human immunodeficiency virus type 1." Rayford died of pneumonia, but his other symptoms baffled the doctors who treated him. A study published in 1988 reported the detection of antibodies against HIV. Results of testing for HIV genetic material were reported once at a scientific conference in Australia in 1999; however, the data has never been published in a peer-reviewed medical or scientific journal.
Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is a type of cancer that can form masses on the skin, in lymph nodes, in the mouth, or in other organs. The skin lesions are usually painless, purple and may be flat or raised. Lesions can occur singly, multiply in a limited area, or may be widespread. Depending on the sub-type of disease and level of immune suppression, KS may worsen either gradually or quickly. Except for Classical KS where there is generally no immune suppression, KS is caused by a combination of immune suppression and infection by Human herpesvirus 8.
Joel D. Weisman D.O. was one of the first to identify a pattern of illnesses that was ultimately diagnosed as AIDS during his work as a general practitioner in the United States. He later became an advocate for the development of treatments and prevention of the disease.
Michael Stuart Gottlieb is an American physician and immunologist known for his 1981 identification of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) as a new disease, and for his HIV/AIDS research, HIV/AIDS activism, and philanthropic efforts associated with HIV/AIDS treatment.
Linda Jane Laubenstein was an American physician and early HIV/AIDS researcher. She was among the first doctors in the United States to recognize the AIDS epidemic of the early 1980s; she co-authored the first article linking AIDS with Kaposi's sarcoma.
The stages of HIV infection are acute infection, latency, and AIDS. Acute infection lasts for several weeks and may include symptoms such as fever, swollen lymph nodes, inflammation of the throat, rash, muscle pain, malaise, and mouth and esophageal sores. The latency stage involves few or no symptoms and can last anywhere from two weeks to twenty years or more, depending on the individual. AIDS, the final stage of HIV infection, is defined by low CD4+ T cell counts, various opportunistic infections, cancers, and other conditions.
Sandy Ford was a drug technician for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. In April 1981, she identified unusual clusters of young homosexual patients in New York and California with pneumocystis pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma and alerted her supervisor about it. Those patients had HIV/AIDS; pneumocystis pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma were later found to be AIDS-defining diseases.
[the patient was] a homosexual man who had been many times in United States; ... in 1983 were reported other 4 cases about homosexuals who traveled to USA, when in 1984 AIDS cases [in Italy] were 18; among these, was described in Milan the first case about a drug addicted subject who never had been abroad.
Irene Haske, a spokeswoman at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where Mr. Cohn died, said the primary cause of his death was cardio-pulmonary arrest, with "dementia" and "underlying HTLV III
The impact of AIDS on the dance music industry has been felt by many on an excruciatingly personal level. News this week of Prelude artist Sharon Redd's recent death due to AIDS once again brought reality into chillingly clear focus.