ACQUIRED IMMUNO-DEFICIENCY SYNDROME (AIDS) ::
It is a communicable disease caused by a retrovirus Human immuno deficiency virus (HIV) that specifically destroys the immune system of the body by affecting T- lymphocytes as a result person infected with this type of virus have very low immunity power (hence known as AIDS ) and dies within 1-3 years death La Miserable
During the last decade of twentieth centuary this disease has become a pandemic affecting millions of individuals around the world No country is spared and no population is immune to this disease one of the horrifying facts of this disease is that it affects the lives of the productive people of the society i.e children and adolescents
The first case of AIDS was first reported in 1981 in USA However retrospective examination of stored serum in laboratories and blood banks demonstrated that HIV -1 infection began infecting persons in USA earlier According to WHO more than 1.5 million adults have been infected in india and Thialand in 1994 it was estimated that over 16 million people are HIV infected
The First HIV seropositive case in india was indentified in madras in may 1986 According to the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) Which is looking after all the AIDS control related activities in india there were 93598 HIV positive and 10123 frank AIDS partients as on january 2000 These are reported numbers so in all probability represent gross underestimate of the situation Tamil nadu and maharashtra are worst aftected states and account for more them three fourth of the AIDS cases manipur a very small state is third with 400-500 cases It was found that 90% of the cases reported by 1997 were below the age of 50 years and more than two - third were between the age of 20 to 40 years Screening revealed that HIV infection is more prevalent in manipur maharashtra and tamil nadu
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