Week 5: HIV/AIDS Info

Over the years I have learned many things about AIDS. This disease is caused by a virus which attacks our immune systems, weakening us which provides the opportunity for other diseases to infect that normally would not. AIDS is spread through many difference means including through blood, semen, vaginal secretions, and needle sharing. At this point there is no cure although there are a variety of treatments that can allow a patient to live a long and fulfilling life. Many of these are cocktail methods which mix a variety of drugs to hit the virus in several different ways to help keep it from multiplying. These drugs attack important points in viral replication such as docking with the host cell membrane, turning its RNA into DNA, and integrating its genome into the host DNA. Most of the information that I have learned about AIDS has come from either biology or health courses that I have taken since the beginning of high school. I would like to learn more about the actions taken to education people around the world about the risks of spreading AIDS and different aspects of AIDS prevention. The most surprising thing that I have learned so far came from the video seen on Monday of this week. I never thought about how many children are left as orphans when their parents are both killed by the disease. These children are in many cases left to fend for the themselves unless they are lucky enough to have family members able to care for them.