A.I.D.S
...(Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the virus that causes AIDS, was first discovered in 1981 and it has since swept across the globe, infecting millions in a relatively short period of time. AIDS has killed 28.1 million people that we know of, with 3 million people dying in the year 2002 alone. Clearly the AIDS pandemic has had, and will continue to have, a significant and global impact.
What HIV does is invades the cells of our immune system and reprogram the cells to become HIV-producing factories. Slowly the number of immune cells in the body deteriorates, and AIDS develops. Once AIDS manifests, a person is susceptible to many different infections, because the immune system has been weakened so much by the HIV it can no longer fight back effectively. HIV has also shown the ability to mutate, which makes treating the virus nearly impossible.
A person can carry and transmit the HIV virus for many years before any symptoms show themselves. A person can be contagious for a decade or more before any visible signs of disease become apparent. In a decade, an HIV carrier can potentially infect dozens of people, who each can infect dozens of people, and so on.
Here is a brief overview of the life cycle of the AIDS virus
As you can see here are the basic parts of an HIV Virus.
· HIV are genes which are composed of ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules. Like all viruses, HIV replicates inside host cells. Once the HIV virus enters the body, it heads for the lymphoid tissues, where it finds T-helper cells.
· Binding - The HIV attaches to the immune cell when the HIV virus binds with the protein of the T-helper cell. The viral core enters the T-helper cell and the protein membrane fuses with the cell membrane.
· Reverse transcription - The viral enzyme copies the virus's RNA into DNA.
· The newly created DNA is carried into the cell's nucleus by the enzyme,...
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