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What is HIV infection and AIDS?
Last reviewed: 19.10.2021
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HIV infection is a long-term infectious disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which affects cells of the immune, nervous and other systems and organs of man. With HIV infection, the immune system progresses, leading to the development of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
HIV infection was detected in 1981, when the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 5 cases of pneumocystis pneumonia and 28 cases of Kaposi's sarcoma in previously healthy homosexuals. In immunological studies, these patients had a sharp decrease in CD4 lymphocyte count. For the first time, a diagnosis was made: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), in Russian translation - Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS),
In subsequent publications, descriptions of AIDS have also appeared in men in heterosexual orientation, as well as in women. The number of women did not exceed 5% of the total number of patients, but these data showed that a hundred homosexual transmission routes can not be considered as the only way.
Description of cases of AIDS infection in hemophilia patients who received repeated intravenous infusions of hemoconcentrates, characterized the possibility of not only the sexual but also the parenteral route of infection.
Infection with AIDS in the transfusion of whole blood and its drugs from clinically healthy donors was a direct confirmation of the existence of a latent stage of the infectious process.
Significant epidemiological significance was the data on the detection of clinical signs of AIDS in injecting drug users with intravenous injection, which later became the main high-risk group for HIV infection.
The human immunodeficiency virus was isolated in 1983 by a group of Prof. Luke Montagnier (Pagister Institute, France) from the lymph node of an AIDS patient. In the same year in the US, a group of Professor Robert Gallo (National Cancer Institute, USA) isolated a virus from peripheral blood lymphocytes from AIDS patients. Both viruses were identical and WHO in 1987 adopted a single name - "Human MMM" (HIV, English abbreviation - HIV).
In 1996, the AIDS Congress in Vancouver reported the results of the use of highly active antiretroviral therapy with the appointment of three drugs: two inhibitors of reverse transcriptase and one inhibitor of protease (HAART, Highly Active Anti-retroviral therapy). More than 2/3 of the AIDS patients on HAART were discharged from the hospital and were able to return to work.
An important aspect of the problem is the analysis of the history of the HIV pandemic. Thus, the results of the analysis of the archives of the case histories showed that the period from 1979 to 1982. 509 patients with signs of AIDS were found out of them, 209 of them died. Especially many such patients have appeared in the regions of Central Africa, where, judging by archival materials, AIDS patients have been observed since 1962.
It is assumed that the ancestral home of HIV was the region of tropical aquatorial Africa, corresponding to the habitat of green monkeys, which proved the existence of a close virus - Simian Immunodeficiency Virus SIV (SIV-virus of immunodeficiency of monkeys). Gradually, the virus adapted to the conditions of existence in the human body, there was a transformation of SIV into HIV. Zoonotic infection has turned into anthroponous infection, which was first sporadic, epidemic and then pandemic spread.