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HIV was isolated 25 years ago. HIV research then and now bear no comparison. While the meeting will understandably take us back to 1983, it seeks to present cutting edge research from the virus to the clinic. It kicks off with structural studies on the virus and moves on to how the host cell tries to restrict replication by a variety of different approaches. The day ends with an overview of the enormous diversity of simian look-alike virus. The second day is resolutely immunological and covers antibodies, T cell responses and immunopathogenesis. The ensemble is tied up by reviewing the impact of human polymorphisms on disease progression. The last day turns to the difficult problems of a vaccine and drug resistance. The changing face of clinical AIDS and the disease burden in the Africa and Asia bring up the rear.
More Details present in the followin URL http://www.pasteur.fr/infosci/conf/sb/25yearsHIV/index.html
The virus has two major strains: HIV-1, which is closely related to the primate retrovirus called simian immunodeficiency virus, and HIV-2, which is associated with immunodeficiency but less pathogenic that HIV-1, results from infection with HIV, which strikes cells bearing the CD4+ antigen; the latter (normally a receptor for major histocompatibility complex molecules) serves as a receptor for the retrovirus and lets it enter the cell. HIV prefers to infect the CD4+ lymphocyte or macrophage but may also infect other CD4+ antigen-bearing cells of the GI tract, uterine cervical cells, and neuroglial cells. The virus gains access by binding to the CD4+ molecule on the cell surface along with a co-receptor (thought to be the receptor CCR5). After invading a cell, HIV either replicates, which leads to cell death, or becomes latent. HIV infection leads to profound pathology, either directly, through destruction of CD4+ T cells, other immune cells, and neuroglial cells, or indirectly, through the secondary effects of CD4+ T-cell dysfunction and resultant immunosuppressant.
The infection process takes three forms:
❑ Immunodeficiency (opportunistic infections and unusual cancers)
❑ Autoimmunity (lymphoid interstitial pneumonia, arthritis, hypergammaglobulinemia, and production of autoimmune antibodies)
AIDS is caused by the HIV a kind of the virus called the retovirus that develop a condition in the human in which the human begins to fail ,leading to life threatening oppurtunistic infections. HIV primarily infects vital cells in the human immune system such as helper T cells (specifically CD4+ T cells), macrophages and dendritic cells. HIV infection leads to low levels of CD4+ T cells through three main mechanisms: firstly, direct viral killing of infected cells; secondly, increased rates of apoptosis in infected cells; and thirdly, killing of infected CD4+ T cells by CD8 cytotoxic lymphocytes that recognize infected cells. When CD4+ T cell numbers decline below a critical level, cell-mediated immunity is lost, and the body becomes progressively more susceptible to opportunistic infections.
It was also discovered that the people having the AIDS has to have more chance of Viseral Leishmaniasis or in other words we can say the people who is suffering from the Visearl Leishmaniasis he has more chance getting the AIDS.
Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells. The four major routes of transmission are unprotected sexual intercourse, contaminated needles, breast milk, and transmission from an infected mother to her baby at birth. Screening of blood products for HIV has largely eliminated transmission through blood transfusions or infected blood products in the developed world.
HIV infection in humans is now pandemic. As of January 2006, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized on December 1, 1981, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in recorded history. It is estimated that about 0.6% of the world's population is infected with HIV. In 2005 alone, AIDS claimed an estimated 2.4–3.3 million lives, of which more than 570,000 were children. A third of these deaths are occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, retarding economic growth and increasing poverty. According to current estimates, HIV is set to infect 90 million people in Africa, resulting in a minimum estimate of 18 million orphans.Antiretroviral treatment reduces both the mortality and the morbidity of HIV infection, but routine access to antiretroviral medication is not available in all countries.
Therefore it needs care and awareness to prevent the attack of this deadful retivirus.