HIV IN MEN

HIV in Men

HIV in Men

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) presents as a variety of diseases and illnesses, all of which result from infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). HIV attacks the human immune system, weakening the response of the body to infection and disease and rendering a patient susceptible to various illnesses. HIV causes few symptoms, and an infected person may appear and feel healthy for years after contracting the virus. Once the virus has weakened the immune system sufficiently, the disease progresses to full-blown AIDS, which marked by a variety of illnesses from which the patient has increasing difficulty in recovering. Death from AIDS results from the effects of secondary illnesses.

HIV/AIDS believed to have arisen in western and central Africa in the mid-twentieth century. The virus is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, semen, and vaginal secretions. It communicated primarily through sexual contact but also can be transmitted from mother to child (prenatally, during delivery, or during breast-feeding), through the sharing of contaminated needles by intravenous drug users, through the use of infected blood in medical procedures, and by other means of blood contamination (needle punctures, contamination of open wounds, etc.). (Herek, 1999, 1147)

HIV is a retrovirus capable of rapid mutation that produces a latent infection that develops over a prolonged period. To infect a human, HIV must attach to a specific host cells known as CD4 cells, which are responsible for regulating the immune system. Once it has occupied a host cell, the virus copies the DNA of the cell, rendering it invisible to the body's defense system. The virus replicates itself within the cells, producing numerous virus particles that bud from the surface of the cell, destroying the cell and moving on to attach to another CD4 cell. For several weeks or months after initial infection the patient is highly infectious, although HIV testing will not reveal the patient's positive status. After this initial period, which known as the window period, the virus incubates, destroying many CD4 cells but fended off by the immune system. Some two million CD4 cells destroyed each day by some ten billion newly produced virus particles. The incubation period for HIV is quite long, averaging around ten years. Once the balance between CD4 cells and virus particles shifts in favor of HIV, however, symptoms begin to appear. (Herek, 1999, 1116)Effects on population

In most countries human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection initially spreads primarily through a group of core transmitters who are at particular risk. Sex between men may have a transmission rate as high as one in ten, depending on sexual practices. Transmission rates among intravenous drug users are high because a contaminated needle can introduce HIV directly into the bloodstream. Sex workers also have an elevated risk of contracting and transmitting HIV. HIV/AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) ordinarily establishes itself in those high-risk groups before moving into the general population. As the mode of transmission shifts from sex between men and the sharing of needles by intravenous drug users, the rate of HIV diagnosis among women often increases dramatically, leading to greater numbers ...