AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Disease. It is caused by a virus.

The disease originated somewhere in Africa about 20 years ago. There it first appeared as a mysterious ailment afflicting primarily heterosexuals of both sexes. It probably was spread especially fast by primarily female prostitutes there. AIDS has already become a crisis of STAGGERING proportions in parts of Africa. In Zaire, it is estimated that over twenty percent of the adults currently carry the virus. That figure is increasing. And what occurred there will, if no cure is found, most likely occur here among heterosexual folks.

AIDS was first seen as a disease of gay males in this country. This was a result of the fact that gay males in this culture in the days bef

ore AIDS had an average of 200 to 400 new sexual contacts per year. This figure was much higher than common practice among heterosexual (straight) men or women. In addition, it turned out that rectal sex was a particularly effective way to transmit the disease, and rectal sex is a common practice among gay males. For these reasons, the disease spread in the gay male population of this country immensely more quickly than in other populations. It became to be thought of as a "gay disease". Because the disease is spread primarily by exposure of ones blood to infected blood or semen, I.V. drug addicts who shared needles also soon were identified as an affected group. As the AIDS epidemic began to affect increasingly large fractions of those two populations (gay males and IV drug abusers), many of the rest of this society looked on smugly, for both populations tended to be despised by the "mainstream" of society here. But AIDS is also spread by heterosexual sex. In addition, it is spread by blood transfusions. New born babies can acquire the disease from infected mothers during pregnancy. Gradually more and more "mainstream" folks got the disease. Most recently, a member of congress died of the disease. Finally, even the national news media began to join in the task of educating the public to the notion that AIDS can affect everyone.

The above also means that friends and family and coworkers of AIDS patients and seropostive persons have nothing to fear from such casual contact. There is no reason to not show your love or concern for a friend with AIDS by embracing the person. Indeed, there appears still to be NO rational basis for excluding AIDS suffers from food preparation activity. Even if an AIDS suffer cu

Some topics in this essay:
Africa Zaire, AIDS Similarly, Clorox AIDS, Viruses Research, , Deficiency Disease, DNA RNA, RNA DNA, gay males, aids virus, aids suffers, common practice, human cells, antibody positive, viral dna, rectal sex, aids transmitted, dna rna,