AIDS :: Free AIDS Essays

The acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was initially recognized in the first half of the twentieth century and has since become a major worldwide epidemic (â€Å"Discovery Health†). Debate about the origin of AIDS has enticed considerable concern and controversy since the advent of the epidemic. It is has been proven that AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by stimulating the destruction and functional impairment of cells in the immune system, potentially destroying the human body’s ability to fight infection (â€Å"CDC†). While there is no cure for the AIDS epidemic, a combination of historical studies and expanding medical technology enable it to be controlled in the course of the future. Knowing where the disease came from and the development of HIV is essential in creating a vaccine and more efficient treatment against the virus. Evidence that the AIDS disease is caused by the HIV virus include numerous international studies indicating that virtually all patients diagnosed with AIDS are HIV seropositive; they carry antibodies that depict HIV - infection. Also, modern techniques have allowed the isolation of HIV in all AIDS patients, as well as in nearly all HIV seropositive individuals with both early and late stage disease. Furthermore, a 1999 case reported to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) accounted three laboratory employees as infected with AIDS after accidental exposure of concentrated replicas of HIV in the laboratory; in all three instances, HIV was insulated and attest to be the infecting cause of disease (â€Å"CDC†). Such examples, demonstrating HIV as the cause of AIDS, satisfy nineteenth century physician’s, Robert Koch’s, accredited postulates of disease stating that: â€Å"one, the suspected cause [HIV] must be strongly associated with the disease [AIDS] ; two, the suspected agent can be isolated and propagated outside the host, and three, the transfer of the agent to an uninfected host, man, or animal, produces the disease in that host† (â€Å"Koch’s Postulate†). Thus, to find the genesis of AIDS, scientists must find the source of the HIV virus. HIV is subdivision of a group of viruses classified as lentiviruses. Lentiviruses excluding HIV have been discovered in a broad range of nonhuman primates, scientifically referred to as simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIV); it has been universally accepted that HIV is a descendant of SIV since certain simian immunodeficiency viruses share a mutual resemblance to HIV - 1 and HIV - 2, the two types of HIV.