Cause and Effect Essay - HAVING HIV DOES NOT MEAN HAVING AIDS

HAVING HIV DOES NOT MEAN HAVING AIDS

By Jaime Romero.

Through the ages the human kind has faced many mortal diseases, some of them have been considered as plagues. Every period of times has had it own plague, the Bubonic Plague for example, was the mortal malady for the 14th century; it killed half the people living in Europe. Venereal diseases such as gonorrhea and syphilis were the devastation of the 19th and early 20th centuries. And lately, the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) shows itself as the plague for the 21st century.

The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is nowadays according to the World Health Organization the first cause of death around the world, killing around 45 million people in 2005. This devastation permit the direct association between AIDS and death, and everything about the syndrome has been associated with death too. The simple fact of being infected with the virus which causes the disease makes people believe that the contaminated person is going to die soon. But in fact, people do not die just because they are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus; other causes such as being genetically predisposed to reproduce the immunodeficiency virus and finally have an opportunistic infection are necessaries to be considered as an AIDS patient.

The main cause for considering a person as an AIDS-patient is being infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). AIDS is not considered a sickness but a syndrome. Cambridge University (2003) define the word syndrome as “the combination of medical problems that come together”, which means that Aids is not a single medical problem but a combination of them. According to Marx (1982) “the main characteristic of this syndrome is the specific damage to the immune system caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)”. This virus attacks the immunity cells of the organism in order to reproduce itself, destroying the cells in the process which causes a decrease on the defense capacity of the body against sicknesses, which is call “acquired immunodeficiency”. Without the presence of the HIV is not possible to considerer that a person have AIDS.

But not only the presence of the HIV in the person’s organism is enough to considerer that this person has to develop AIDS, once in the system the virus needs that the person has a genetic predisposition to let it attack the cells and reproduce itself into the cells, and not everybody has this genetic condition. Some people have a variation in her/his genes, and this does not allow HIV to infect the cells. O'Brien, Stephen, Dean and Michael (1997) remark about this capacity of resistance against HIV attacks that:
[1]On the tenor of some new discoveries there are people who are partial or totally resistant to HIV infections because of their genes, to be more accurate, because of a variant of the Delta-34 gene, which is involve in the immunity function. (P. 2)
The presence of the Delta-34 gene in the DNA structure of a person allows the cells to create a chemically different membrane which does not allow HIV to attack the cells. The virus can be present in the organism systems but the destruction of the immune system never occurs, this mean that the person can have the virus but she/he is never going to develop the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

Even thought a person has the human immunodeficiency virus in her/his body, and the virus had undermined her/his immunologic system, this person cannot be considered as an AIDS patient; it is necessary that this person develops one o more of a group of opportunist sickness related to AIDS. This bunch of illness receives the name of “opportunist” because they take advantage of the defenseless state of the immunologic system to attack. Many HIV infected people develop this kind of sickness, but not all of them have to. Vergis and Mellors (1995) refer to this unnecessary suffering for the HIV patient with the following words:

The HIV infected patient is predisposed to suffer the highest frequency infections of the natural environment where he/she lives. In Africa Tuberculosis present itself as the main HIV opportunistic sickness; in USA, Canada and Europe toxoplasmosis is an important cause of hospitalization for HIV patients, … but in countries such as Switzerland and Sweden which do not epidemics since two or three decades ago, HIV patients usually do not present any severe opportunistic sickness, so they can have a large and apparently healthy life for decades. (Pp. 3, 5)

In conclusion and according to the previously exposed facts, having HIV is not enough for a person be considered an AIDS patient, it is necessary other factors such as being genetically predisposed to reproduce the virus and have at least one of a bunch of opportunistic infection. If the previous combination is not completed the person can be considered infected by HIV, but not an AIDS patient.

Many people think that theirs lives are finished when they are diagnosed HIV infected, and that is not true. The HIV’s diagnose it just the first step in a sequence which could finish in an AIDS situation, but not always. HIV infected even AIDS patient can have a long and productive life.

References
Cambridge University (2003). Cambridge Advance Learner’s Dictionary.[Compact Disc Encyclopedia].[Search Item: Syndrome]. Cambridge University Press. Version 1.

Marx, J. L. (1982). "New disease baffles medical community". Science Magazine 618-621. PubMed.

O'Brien, Stephen, Dean and Michael.(1997) Genes que oponen resistencia al Sida. Barcelona-Spain. Prensa Científica Editor.

Vergis E, and J. Mellors (2000). Infectious Disease Clinics of North America University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Chapter I.

[1] A tenor de ciertos descubrimientos recientes, hay personas que son parcial o totalmente resistentes a las infecciones del VIH gracias a sus genes; para ser más exactos a cierta variante del gen Delta-34 implicado en la función inmunitaria.