What is it about AIDS that make so many desperate?

Dec 11
09:15

2009

Lavanay Bhadwal

Lavanay Bhadwal

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Have you ever heard anyone saying that AIDS is just a myth?

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The simple fact that the disease has no treatment and there is very little hope on the horizon of any treatment anytime soon! But hope springs eternal in the human breast and researchers are racing around the clock to find something,What is it about AIDS that make so many desperate?  Articles anything that will help to cut down the disease and its effects.

If you are one of the thousands that are with the disease then it’s a good idea to keep track of nearly every clinical trial that is around. You can volunteer for clinical trials and find out the status of AIDS research at the same time too. Here are a few simple tips about finding out exactly how you can keep updated about AIDS research and clinical trials in the country-

AIDS vaccines are still undergoing rigorous testing to ensure that they are viable for human use and are useful to the human body. But researchers are still eons away from anything that is really viable for human use. The main reason for this is that the virus mutates easily. The antibodies that are created by the body or the virus cannot deal with the rapidly changing face of the virus.

Another problem is that the most vaccines are used to back up the immune system by stimulating it to produce antibodies but this does not work with AIDS. The immune system is already weakened and stimulating it will not work. Searching for other alternatives took a lot of time and researchers had to find other strategies to deal with the virus.

Researchers have now focused on SIV that is a similar variant to AIDS but attacks on animals. The SIV variant has similar symptoms in primates but it never progresses to cause a weakened immune system.

Although there have been a few attenuated vaccines been created to target the virus; these have not worked on humans. The same variant of vaccine was created for SIV infected primates and it has worked! Researchers have now used the SIV virus as the model on which they can test the HIV infection.

The only problem at present is that the spread of the virus is taking place very fast with thousands of patient’s suffering from the disease and thousands more dying everyday. At present, till a vaccine becomes available, prevention is the only way that the disease can be limited.