Life: World AIDS day Part 2

Since writing my original entry about World AIDS day (also known as ‘AIDS awareness day’) this morning, quite a number of other bloggers have blogged about it (as per the aim of Link And Think) and I’ve had a couple of search queries arrive at the site (only because I’ve been doing some work on the server backend) so for all those people – here’s even more information about “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome” and “Human Immunodeficiency Virus” – including a list of famous people that have already died from AIDS/HIV related illnesses.

Ciaran used Googlism to produce a few entries about HIV and AIDS. Go to his site for the results of searching for ‘HIV’, but here are the results of a Googlism on AIDS:

aids is a security threat (source: BBC News article)

At first, I thought “no it isn’t”, but the BBC news article points out how American intelligence reports say that “the long-term effects of Aids will be catastrophic for some countries, initially in sub-Saharan Africa and later in other regions, including South Asia and the former Soviet Union. The reports warn that the disease could trigger ethnic wars and genocide and undermine democratic governments.”. So, I’ll agree with them there.

aids is leaving a generation of orphans (source: CNN article)

Yep, it is. 16million African children have lost at least one parent to AIDS – in the next ten years that number is expected to reach 28 million!

aids is a global crisis (source: AllAfrica.com)

Yep it is a global crisis! As you can see from my previous post, 42 million people currently have HIV/AIDS worldwide (figures from NHS Direct). To put that into perspective the last UK census showed that the UK population was 58,789,194. Imagine 71.44% of the population of a country being HIV Positive or having AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa currently has a population of around 700million of those 4.2% (29.4million) are suffering from HIV or AIDS.

aids is number one killer in south africa (source: AllAfrica.com)

Around 40% of adult deaths between the ages of 15 and 49 in South Africa are currently linked to AIDS (according to a report from the Medical Research Council Of South Africa).

aids is not a homosexual disease (source: Miami Herald)

AIDs and HIV can affected anyone: from a new born baby (who got it from it’s mother), to heterosexual couples (who can get/give it to each other) – to even haemophiliacs (who, in developing countries, stand a chance of getting it from blood donors). Oh – around 1,000 of the USA’s diagnosed AIDS cases are in Florida – and most of those are in Dade and Broward counties.

aids is a crime (source: Medecins Sans Frontieres)

The full title of that page is “Waiting to treat AIDS is a crime” and that I agree with. Whilst AIDS/HIV cannot, yet, be cured – medical “cocktails” can be given to patients which help increase their probability of survival (by increasing their CD4 cell counts). It does appear that deliberately spreading the HIV virus can be illegal – a man in Australia was arrested in 1998 for “recklessly endangering the lives of 3 men”. Italy sounds a bit odd as they seem to have a law that prevents people suffering from HIV/AIDS from going to prison.

Jish had an entry last year about World Aids day where he linked to this informative article on amfAR:

What is HIV?
HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. A member of a group of viruses called retroviruses, HIV infects human cells and uses the energy and nutrients provided by those cells to grow and reproduce.

What is AIDS?
AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is a disease in which the body’s immune system breaks down and is unable to fight off certain infections, known as “opportunistic infections,” and other illnesses that take advantage of a weakened immune system.
When a person is infected with HIV, the virus enters the body and lives and multiplies primarily in the white blood cells. These are the immune cells that normally protect us from disease. The hallmark of HIV infection is the progressive loss of a specific type of immune cell called T-helper or CD4 cells.
As the virus grows, it damages or kills these and other cells, weakening the immune system and leaving the individual vulnerable to various opportunistic infections and other illnesses, ranging from pneumonia to cancer. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines someone as having a clinical diagnosis of AIDS if they have tested positive for HIV and meet one or both of these conditions:

• They have experienced one or more AIDS-related infections or illnesses;
• The number of CD4 cells has reached or fallen below 200 per cubic millimetre of blood (a measurement known as T-cell count).
  In healthy individuals, the CD4 count normally ranges from 450 to 1200.

Are some people at greater risk of HIV infection than others?
HIV does not discriminate. It is not who you are, but what you do that determines whether you can become infected with HIV. Worldwide, sexual intercourse is by far the most common mode of HIV transmission, but in the U.S., as many as half of all new HIV infections are now associated either directly or indirectly with injection drug use, i.e., using HIV-contaminated needles to inject drugs or having sexual contact with an HIV-infected drug user. Overall, HIV infection is spreading fastest in this country among young people, women, African Americans, and Hispanics.
Are women especially vulnerable to HIV?
In western countries, women are four times more likely to contract HIV through vaginal sex with infected males than vice versa. This biological vulnerability is worsened by social and cultural factors that often undermine women’s ability to avoid sex with partners who are HIV-infected or to insist on condom use. In the U.S., the proportion of AIDS cases among women more than tripled from 7% in 1985 to 23% in 1999. African American and Hispanic women, who represent less than one-quarter of U.S. women, represent nearly 80% of AIDS cases reported among American women to date.

ForNoGoodReason has a nice little pie chart showing the distribution of Aids/HIV+ cases around the world.

Big Pink Cookie linked and quoted from an article on the SeattlePI entitled “AIDS a century from now” which reads “”Without intervention, a billion could die amid many wrecked economies”. A billion people! The current world population is 6 billion…

Another BBC news article reports that there was a 25% increase in the number of British people infected with HIV over the last year (2,945 new diagnoses compared with 2,354 in the same period last year). The Boehringer Ingelheim site has some images of HIV and a HIV Life Cycle is available via AIDMeds.com

A couple of people came here search for “famous deaths due to aids” and “famous people aids”, so in case there come here again, here’s a list of famous people that have died from AIDs related illnesses:

Freddie Mercury – lead singer of UK pop-group Queen

Born as Frederick Bulsara on the 5th of September 1946 in Zanzibar, Africa. After speculation over his health he publicly announced he was suffering from AIDS – within forty-eight hours on the 24th November 1991, he died in London, England.

Ricky Wilson – Guitar player for the The B-52’s

Born on the 19th of March 1953 in Georgia, USA, he passed away on the 13th of October 1985. Initially it was claimed that cancer was the cause of death to try and save his family from intrusion.

Richard C. Failla, Justice of New York Supreme Court (1988-1993)

Born in 1940, Failla died in his New York office on the 12th April 1993

Amanda Blake – “Kitty Russell” in the TV series “GunSmoke“

Born Beverly Louise Neill on the 20 February 1929 in Buffalo, New York, USA, Blake won Golden Globe Award in 1972 for the “Best Supporting Actress” in her role as ‘Miss Kitty’ in Gunsmoke. She passed away at the age of 60 on the 16th of August 1989 in Sacramento, California, USA from throat cancer complicated by a type of viral hepatitis brought on by AIDS.

Isaac Asimov – author of many sci-fi and robot orientated stories.

The “grand-daddy” of all science-fiction books was born in Petrovichi, Russia in 1920, but passed away in New York, USA in 1992. It was revealed in his posthumous autobiography “It’s Been a Good Life” that Dr.Asimov contracted HIV via blood transfusions for triple bypass surgery in December 1983 and died in 1992 from heart and kidney failure as a consequence.

(Sources: Fuller Up Dead Musicians Directory, The Political Graveyard, Doctor Says Amanda Blake Died of AIDS, Asimov book reveals he died from AIDS, Isaac Asimov’s Thyroid Cancer Story)

That’s quite a number of famous people (I didn’t even know why Isaac Asimov died until now): and those are just the people I could find and list in around 20 minutes.

Makes you think doesn’t it?