Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune systemcaused by the human

immunodeficiency virus (HIV).[1][2] [3] The illness interferes with the immune system making people with AIDS much more likely to get infections, including opportunistic infections and tumors that do not affect people with working immune systems. This susceptibility gets worse as the disease continues. HIV is transmitted in many ways, such as anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. It can be transmitted by any contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid that has the virus in it, such as the blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, or breast milk from an infected person.[4][5]

history and origin

AIDS was first reported June 5, 1981, when the U. S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recorded a cluster of Pneumocystis cariniipneumonia(now still classified as PCP but known to be caused by Pneumocystis jirovecii) in five homosexual men in Los Angeles.[157] In the beginning, the CDC did not have an official name for the disease, often referring to it by way of the diseases that were associated with it, for example,lymphadenopathy, the disease after which the discoverers of HIV originally named the virus.[76][77] They also used Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections, the name by which a task force had been set up in 1981.[158] The earliest known positive identification of the HIV-1 virus comes from the Congo in 1959 and 1960 though genetic studies indicate that it passed into the human population from chimpanzees around fifty years earlier.[11] A 2007 study states that a strain of HIV-1 probably moved from Africa to Haiti and then entered the United States around 1969.[163]

world aids day

World AIDS Day, observed on 1 December every year, is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread ofHIV infection. Government and health officials observe the day, often with speeches or forums on the AIDS topics. Since 1995, the President of the United States has made an official proclamation on World AIDS Day. Governments of other nations have followed suit and issued similar announcements. AIDS has killed more than 25 million people between 1981 and 2007,[1] and an estimated 33.2 million people worldwide live with HIV as of 2007,[2] making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history. Despite recent, improved access to antiretroviral treatment and care in many regions of the world, the AIDS epidemic claimed an estimated 2 million lives in 2007,[3] of which about 270,000 were children