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. وأعتذر عن التأخير
. وفي كم صورة في الملفات المرفقة.
:shock22: :shock22:
INTRODUCTION
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), a clinical syndrome (a group of various illnesses that together characterize a disease) resulting from damage to the immune system caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
AIDS Virus The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), principally attacks T-4 lymphocytes, a vital part of the human immune system. As a result, the body’s ability to resist opportunistic viral, bacterial, fungal, protozoal, and other infection is greatly weakened. Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia is the leading cause of death among people with HIV infection, but the incidence of certain types of cancers such as B-cell lymphomas and Kaposi’s sarcoma is also increased. Neurological complications and dramatic weight loss, or wasting, are characteristic of AIDS, which is endstage HIV disease. HIV is transmitted sexually; through contact with contaminated blood, tissue, or needles; and from mother to child during birth or breast-feeding. Full-blown symptoms of AIDS may not develop for more than 10 years after infection.Photo Researchers, Inc./Luc Montagnier/Institut Pasteur/CNRI/Science Source
In HIV-infected individuals, there is a gradual loss of immune cells (called CD4+ T-lymphocytes) and immune function. The mechanisms by which HIV causes this immune deficiency are still not completely understood, although direct infection of CD4+ T-lymphocytes by HIV certainly plays a role. The loss of immune function, if untreated, results eventually in the development of opportunistic diseases caused by common infections that do not present a threat to healthy individuals, including fungal, bacterial, protozoal, and viral diseases, as well as by malignancies that appear to be associated with immune dysregulation. In the absence of treatment, it generally takes six to ten years from the point of infection to develop AIDS, although the rate of disease progression may vary substantially from person to person.
Luc Montagnier In 1983, while working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, scientists led by Luc Montagnier became one of three groups to simultaneously discover the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The other two groups included one at the National Cancer Institute, Maryland, led by Robert Gallo, and a group at the University of California, San Francisco, headed by Jay Levy. Montagnier's group had made their discovery when they isolated what appeared to be a new human retrovirus from the lymph node of a man at risk of developing AIDS. Luc Montagnier is here pictured in 1991.Sygma/J. Andanson
In the early 1980s deaths by opportunistic infections, previously observed mainly in transplant recipients receiving immunosuppressive therapy, were recognized in otherwise healthy homosexual men. In 1983, Luc Montagnier and scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris isolated what appeared to be a new human retrovirus from the lymph node of a man at risk of developing AIDS. Almost simultaneously, both Robert Gallo’s group at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and a group headed by Jay Levy at the University of California, San Francisco, isolated a retrovirus from AIDS patients and from people who had had sexual contact with AIDS patients. All three groups had isolated what is now known as HIV—the aetiological (causative) agent of AIDS.
II DETECTION AND DIAGNOSIS
With the identification of HIV in 1983 came the opportunity to develop a method of specific detection. The screening tests now in widespread use by blood banks, plasma centres, reference laboratories, private clinics, and health departments analyse a sample of blood for the presence of antibodies produced by the immune system in response to infection with HIV. Separate serological tests were developed to detect HIV-1 and HIV-2, owing to the major differences in the protein components of these two related viruses. There are also different sub-types (or "clades") of HIV-1 and HIV-2, reflecting the different evolutionary paths that the viruses have taken in specific geographical locations. As new sub-types of HIV are identified from around the world, they too will need to be evaluated for detection by these tests.
There is a brief “window period” (normally four to eight weeks) after exposure to HIV during which standard screening tests are unable to detect the presence of HIV because the immune system has not had enough time to make antibodies against HIV. During this period, other methods that use amplification techniques (such as polymerase chain reaction) to detect the genetic material of the virus itself, rather than antibodies against it, may be able to determine whether an individual is infected with HIV.
A person who receives a positive test result for HIV infection is often described as HIV-positive. Being HIV-positive does not necessarily imply that a person also has AIDS. A person can be infected with HIV for a long period—greater than ten years—without developing any of the clinical illnesses that constitute a diagnosis of AIDS.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, established an authoritative definition for the diagnosis of AIDS: in an HIV-positive individual, the CD4+ cell count must be below 200 cells per cu mm of blood, or there must be the clinical appearance of a specific opportunistic condition that is considered AIDS-defining, from a long list that includes Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), oesophageal candidiasis (thrush), pulmonary tuberculosis, and invasive cervical carcinoma. In Europe, however, a CD4+ cell count below 200 is not in itself grounds for the diagnosis of AIDS; HIV-positive people must have an AIDS-defining opportunistic illness to be diagnosed with AIDS.
III NATURE OF THE DISEASE
A Clinical Progression of AIDS
A1 Measuring Progression
The progression from the point of HIV infection to the occurrence of one (or more) of the clinical diseases that define AIDS may take six to ten years or longer. The progression to disease in HIV-infected individuals can be monitored using surrogate markers (laboratory data that correlate with disease progression), or clinical end points (illnesses that can occur after a specific degree of immunosuppression has been reached). Surrogate markers for the various stages of HIV disease include the progressive loss of CD4+ T-lymphocytes (CD4+ T-cells), the major white blood cells lost through HIV infection. In general, the lower the patient's CD4+ T-cell count, the more advanced is the degree of immunosuppression. The amount of HIV circulating in the blood is a second surrogate marker. Using sensitive detection techniques, the quantity of HIV in the blood of an untreated individual correlates with the clinical stage of the disease and predicts the rate of disease progression.
A2 Acute Retroviral Syndrome
A well-recognized progression of disease occurs in untreated HIV-infected individuals. Within one to three weeks after infection with HIV, many (but not all) individuals experience non-specific flu-like symptoms that may include fever, headache, skin rash, tender lymph nodes, and malaise, lasting approximately one to two weeks. During this phase, termed acute retroviral syndrome or primary HIV infection, HIV reproduces itself to very high levels, circulates through the blood, and establishes infections in tissues throughout the body, especially in the lymph nodes. Patients’ CD4+ cell counts fall briefly but return to near-normal levels as the immune system recognizes the infection and mounts an immune response that reduces HIV replication, albeit incompletely.
A3 Asymptomatic Phase
Individuals then enter a prolonged asymptomatic phase that can last ten years or more. During this period, infected individuals usually remain in good health, with levels of CD4+ cells in the low-normal range (750 to 500 cells per cu mm). However, HIV continues to replicate during the asymptomatic phase, causing a progressive destruction of the immune system. Eventually, the immune system declines and patients enter the early symptomatic phase.
A4 Symptomatic Phases
AIDS Prevention Sign, Botswana A road sign in Botswana about acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) says “AIDS: Your Problem, Control With Condoms”. Africa accounts for more than 60 per cent of adults infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of AIDS.Photo Researchers, Inc./M.P. Kahl
The early symptomatic phase can last from only a few months to several years and is characterized by rapidly falling levels of CD4+ cells (500 to 200 cells per cu mm) and non-life-threatening opportunistic infections. From this phase, patients undergo more extensive immune destruction and serious illness that characterize the late symptomatic phase. The late phase again can last from only a few months to years and patients may have CD4+ cell counts below 200 along with AIDS-defining opportunistic conditions. A wasting syndrome of progressive weight loss and debilitating fatigue is observed in a large proportion of untreated patients in this stage. The immune system is now in severe failure, with a CD4+ cell count below 50. In the absence of effective anti-HIV therapy, death from life-threatening AIDS-defining opportunistic infections and cancers is likely to occur within one to two years.
B Opportunistic Conditions
Death from AIDS is generally not due to HIV infection itself, but due to opportunistic conditions. These infections and malignancies occur when the immune system can no longer provide protection against agents normally found in the environment. The appearance of any one of more than 20 different opportunistic infections, termed AIDS-defining illnesses, provides the clinical diagnosis of AIDS in HIV-infected individuals.
The most common opportunistic infection seen in AIDS is PCP, caused by a fungus (Pneumocystis carinii), which exists in the airways of all individuals. Bacterial pneumonia (caused by several types of bacteria including Streptococcus and Haemophilus) and tuberculosis (TB: a bacterial respiratory infection caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis) are also commonly associated with AIDS.
In late-stage AIDS, disseminated infection by Mycobacterium avium intracellulare complex can cause fever, weight loss, anaemia, and diarrhoea. Additional bacterial infections of the gastrointestinal tract (from Salmonella, Campylobacter, Shigella, or other bacteria) commonly cause diarrhoea, weight loss, anorexia (loss of appetite), and fever.
Besides PCP, other fungal infections, or mycoses, are frequently observed in AIDS patients. Oral candidiasis, or thrush (infection of the mouth by the fungus Candida), is seen early in the symptomatic phase in a high proportion of patients. Oesophageal candidiasis (affecting the throat) is a more serious, AIDS-defining illness. Other mycoses include infections with Cryptococcus species, a major cause of meningitis in up to 13 per cent of AIDS patients, and disseminated histoplasmosis, caused by Histoplasma capsulatum, that affects up to 10 per cent of AIDS patients in the south-central United States and South America, but is very rare in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe.
Viral opportunistic infections, especially with members of the herpes virus family, are common in AIDS patients. One herpes family member, cytomegalovirus (CMV), may infect the retina and can result in blindness. Another herpes virus, Epstein-Barr virus, may result in a cancerous transformation of blood cells. Also common are infections with herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2 that result in progressive oral, genital, and perianal lesions.
Neurological problems that may occur among AIDS patients include: HIV encephalopathy (also known as AIDS dementia), caused by direct infection of brain cells by HIV; progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, caused by the JC virus; and toxoplasmosis, caused by a protozoal infection, Toxoplasma gondii.
Many AIDS patients develop cancers, the most common being Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) and B-cell lymphoma. KS is caused by the cancerous transformation of cells in the skin or internal organs, resulting in purple lesions on the skin, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, or elsewhere in the body. A less serious form of KS also occurs among certain non-HIV-infected populations in Africa and the Mediterranean. It is caused by a recently discovered virus, human herpes virus 8 (HHV-8), which appears to be most commonly transmitted in saliva and during sexual contact. KS occurs relatively commonly among HIV-positive homosexual men and Africans but is rare among other HIV-infected people, reflecting the distribution of HHV-8 in different population groups.