preview

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus ( Aids )

Better Essays

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus
Degie Gelaw
American Sentinel University
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus
Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are public health threats that require comprehensive, organized, and evidence-based control and prevention programs. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine formerly known as the Institute of Medicine (IOM) appointed a 19-member multidisciplinary expert council to study the emergence of microbial threats to health and published a report in the United States about emerging infections (1992). The report cited there were six factors that influenced the emergence and re-emergence of infectious pathogens: “Technology and industry; Economic development and land use; …show more content…

Further, a strain of SIV discovered in a chimpanzee in 1991 that was identical to HIV lead researchers to conclude HIV came from chimpanzees (Levy, 1993) and was determined those who died from the strange infection of pneumocystis pneumonia had HIV infection (Magnus, 2009).
Pathogenesis and Occurrence of HIV
HIV, a lentivirus causes AIDS through interaction of the different cells in the body mainly the cluster of differentiation 4 (CD4) molecules on cells and other cellular receptors (Levy, 1993) particularly responsible for the host’s immune system. Once HIV entry has occurred, the virus starts to destroy the host’s CD4 cells and replicates using an enzyme called reverse transcriptase and converting its ribonucleic acid (RNA) into a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) (Heymann, 2015). In addition, the ability for the HIV to break the long chains of protein that form the virus using an enzyme protease promote viral replication in the same manner as the body’s own immune system.
“With CD4+ lymphocytes, HIV replication can cause syncytium formation and cell death; with other cells, such as macrophages, persistent infection can occur, creating reservoirs for the virus in many cells and tissues” (Levy, 1993, p. 205). Therefore, HIV-infected cells are present throughout the body in the blood

Get Access