Plague is one of the greatest curses to humanity. It takes life or ruins a quality of life that people have once known. When people thinks of plague, they think of disasters like the Black Plague and the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. The question raised is, "Are these plagues a result of disease or of the civilization that spawned them?" The Spanish Flu was a stain of flu that plagued people that lived in close quarters. Both of these diseases could have been prevented by better sanitation at the time of the Black Plague and quarantine at the time of the Spanish Flu. But, there is a new plague that is haunting civilization. The AIDS virus is perhaps the most deadly virus that mankind has ever seen, because it does not discriminate on whom it will infect and this virus will kill anyone who is infected by it. And, this disease is totally preventable. An effective way to screen blood has been developed to eliminate the chance of receiving the virus through a blood transfusion. The only viable way of contracting this deadly virus is through the use of dirty needles and through unprotected sex. With a change in the lifestyle that people lead, the AIDS virus could be controlled like the Spanish Flu and the Black Plague.

AIDS, or Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome, is caused by a virus. A virus is a very small entity that is technically not living. The way a virus replicates is that it will infect a cell and change the DNA or RNA of a cell, causing the cell to create more of the virus. The newly made viruses will build up inside the cell until the cell lyses or splits open releasing the virus into the blood stream to infect more cells. Since a virus is not a living organism like a bacteria and is little more than a strand of DNA or RNA in a protein shell, it is unaffected by antibiotics. The only way to prevent cells that are being infected by the virus from replicating is for them to learn the protein receptor on a virus and be able to block the protein receptor on a virus so that the virus cannot infect a cell.

The HIV virus infects a special class of blood cells called helpers T lymphocytes, also known as T4 helper cells. These helper cells are what trigger the body’s responses to disease by activating B-lymphocytes and cytotoxic T lymphocytes. B Lymphocytes produce antibodies essentials to fight bacteria and other pathogens (Britannica 2001).

HIV is a retrovirus which means that it is a strand of RNA wrapped in a protein coat. A special protein in HIV’s protein coat is called gp120 and this protein binds to a receptor site on the T cell membrane called CD4 (Britannica 2001). The gp120 "tricks" the T cell into letting the virus in. Once inside the cell, the HIV virus uses the cell’s own machinery to duplicate the virus. HIV utilizes an enzyme called reverse transcriptase to copy RNA into DNA. After the RNA is changed into the NDA it is inserted into the chromosomal DNA of the host T cell. Then the virus replicates at an extremely fast pace. It replicates so quickly that the replication is not perfect and thereby creates errors in the production of new viruses. These little errors or mutations result in new forms of HIV making it impossible for the immune system to keep up with all the different variants of the virus traveling through the bloodstream and attacking organs. At one time the physicians estimated the length of a patients life by how many T cells were left, but now a more accurate estimate is made on the amount of virus in the bloodstream, which is known as the "viral load".

There are two major strains of the HIV virus, HIV-1 and HIV-2. Over 60% of the genetic information of these two strains is identical. HIV—1 is the most common. HIV—2 is a strained native to western Africa and it causes AIDS to progress much more slowly. The genetic advantage to HIV-2 is that the symptoms of the disease will occur much later. The result of the symptoms showing themselves later would give the host a longer time to spread the virus. The world is fortunate that HIV-2 is rare because many more people would have been infected. However there are many different strains of the HIV virus because of the numerous mutations that occur in the encoding of the genetic information. Most of the errors occur in the encoding of gp120, which makes the virus impossible for the immune system to recognize.

In 1981, the first cases of AIDS were reported in New York and California. This new disease seemed to infect homosexual men and intravenous drug users. It is now estimated that 58 million people worldwide have been infected with the HIV virus. Nearly two thirds of these people are in sub-Saharan Africa, and six million are Asian. AIDS is also spreading rapidly in Russia, India, and China. AIDS has been termed a "pandemic," a disease that affects not just a small area but an entire country or, in this case, the world (AIDS.org 2001).

The only way to stop the spread of this deadly disease is through education of the population and the use of preventative medicine. In some countries like Uganda, where over 50% of the population is infected with the virus, the spread of AIDS has been put to a standstill by education of the population and stressing the use of condoms (AIDS.org 2001). In the UK, heterosexuals are more prone to AIDS than are homosexuals because heterosexuals do not view themselves as risks to the disease. Some highly conservative countries will not acknowledge the existence of AIDS because it is spread through blood and sexual contact. This is result in the incapacitation and death taking of the young workforce of these countries by this affliction, thereby leaving the grandparents to bury their sons and daughters and run the factories and raise the grandchildren.

There is a faint light at the ends of this terrible tunnel. Researchers are making progress in discovering new methods of treatment. There is not a vaccine for AIDS yet, but research is discovering more about this virus every day and in a few years there may be a vaccine. The only way to be certain that one will not contract AIDS is abstaining from unprotected sex and the use of IV drugs. If one is to engage in sexual activity, a condom is always to be used, and if one is to partake in the use of IV drugs, use only your needle and do not share with anyone. Since the mid 1980’s, a method of screening blood was developed so the risk of contracting AIDS through a blood transfusion in nonexistent.

But, for individuals who do become infected with HIV, there are now new treatments. At one time doctors awaited symptoms of disease that AIDS spawned like Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, and this disease would have been treated with an antibiotic. Researchers are now developing radical new medications that attack the virus itself. The drug azidothymidine (AZT or zidovudine) dideoxyinosine (ddI), and 3TC are able to slow the development of the AIDS virus once an individual has contracted it.(Britannica 2001). These new medications affected the reverse transcriptase in the AIDS virus making them stop reproduction. An even more advanced form of medication called protease inhibitor voids the AIDS virus’s ability to produce HIV protease, an essential enzyme for creating the HIV virus. Ritonivir and indinovir have been proven to stop the progression of the AIDS virus when taken in conjunction with two reverse transcriptase inhibitors (Britannica 2001). The downside to these wonderful new medications is that they must be taken on a strict schedule. A mistake in the time medication is administered will cause the medication to be ineffective. Also, the medication is very expensive. Irving "Magic" Johnson has undergone the interleukin treatment has reduced the number of viruses to a point where it is almost considered that he does not have AIDS any longer. This treatment was extremely expensive and is not covered by most health care providers, so only the wealthy are able to have this treatment.

AIDS has been known since the early eighties, but in reality much more research and work needs to be done. It is not a disease that people want to acknowledge because it originally attacked gay men and IV drug users. AIDS was said to have been God’s way of punishing the wicked, and for a while people truly believed this and some still do. Then an AIDS patient not knowing that he had AIDS gave blood and infected many people that needed blood transfusions. Since the early 1980s a method of screening blood has made it impossible to contract AIDS through a screened blood bank. AIDS is going to take another 58 million worldwide. AIDS is not a curse that god sent; it is a disease that kills without mercy. It will take strait, gay, white, black, first-time IV drug users, or a lifetime IV drug user. Only through the education of the public will this disease be defeated.
 

"AIDS" Encyclopædia Britannica Online. <http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=4225&sctn=1> [accessed 15 December 2001].

AIDS.  AIDS.org. Retrieved December 15, 2001 from the World Wide Web http://www.AIDS.org