TRANSMISSION OF AIDS

Authors

  • Mian Amjad Sohail

Abstract

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) was first reported in June 1981by Centre of Disease Control, United States. The epidemic of AIDS which originatedin United States has been exported so effectively that the rest of the world is only a bitbehind.1 In United States alone more than half a million people are already infectedwith Human T-cell Iymphotropic virus Type III/Lymphadenopathy associated virus(HTLV-III/LAV) now called Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Today no countryof the world can claim to be free from its deadly clutches.The routes of transmission of AIDS were established well before the causativevirus was isolated. It was first described in homosexuals in June 1981.2 It wasrecognized in intra-venous drug abusers and Haitains3 the following year and by 1983in recipients of blood and blood products,4 infants born to mothers at risk,5heterosexual partners of patients with AIDS6 and in Africans.7 These populationgroups have been included in so-called “risk groups”.

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