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	The School of Chemistry, at the University of Bristol, web project 2001, by Andrew Owen

AIDS

ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME

UNAids Report : "... in the eight African countries where HIV infection is most prevalent ... conservative analyses show that Aids will claim the lives of around a third of today's 15-year-olds".

Doctors in Malawi have reported that in the absence of antiretroviral therapy and prophylaxis against opportunistic infections, 90% of children born with HIV infection were dead within three years of birth, and less than 1% had survived to their third birthday without developing symptomatic illness.... In comparison, European research has shown that only 18% of children had died after three years follow-up (with drug treatment), and in the United States the probability that a child would survive to the age of five was 75%....the death rate reported in Malawi may be underestimated...

The first case of aids was reported in 1981. Today, around 37 million  people have contracted the disease, with the main burden of new cases in developing countries. In some areas of Africa, 60% of the local population have HIV/AIDS.

The disease is caused by the HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS (HIV), which weakens and eventually destroys the bodies immune system. The virus is transmitted through the transfer of bodily fluids. With the weakening of the immune system, death can follow from a normally non-fatal infection.

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