Hiv/Aids
...but was originally infected the life stock. During the Dark Ages, medical technology was not a advanced as it is today. Despite our several modern miracles of science, we are as still plagued with a killer disease, HIV. The arrival of a new and lethal virus caught us off guard. Research suggests that the agent responsible for AIDS probably dates from the 1950s, with a chance infection of humans by a modified Simian virus found in African green monkeys.
AIDS is thought to be caused primarily by a virus that invades white blood cells (lymphocytes) - especially T4-lymphocytes or T-helper cells - and certain other body cells, including the brain. In 1983 and 1984, French and U.S. researchers independently identified the virus believed to cause AIDS as an unusual type of slow-acting retrovirus now called "human immunodeficiency virus" or HIV. Like other viruses, HIV is basically a tiny package of genes. Being a retrovirus, it has the rare ability to copy and insert its genes right into a human DNA. Once inside a human host cell the retrovirus uses its own enzyme, genetic code into the DNA. Though the body has been infected with HIV, it may be inactive. It can take years for something to trigger the virus and begin the replication process. During the dormant stage, HIV carriers who are infected with the virus unknowingly still can infect others. (Allen & Kanabus, n.d.)
On average, the dormant virus seems to be triggered into action three to six years after first invading human cells. When turned on, the viral replication may speed along, producing new viruses that destroy white blood cells. White cells are very important to the immune system. As virus continues to replication it is destroying the body disease defense mechanism. (Vandamme, 2003) Contrary to what many believe HIV does not kill people. HIV allows the immune system to become so weak that the one...
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