Aid and Relief Awareness for the World

In two days, December 1st, the media all over the world will be filled again with those pretty red ribbons, at the edge of a newspaper, on the corner of the TV screen, beside the logo of major websites. It is that special day of every year that many people see it, but don’t realize exactly what it means. Young children may even think that this means Christmas is near!

Unfortunately, it is not so. I mean, yes, the Christmas is near, but not for the whole world. The “Red Ribbon” campaign was inspired some years ago as a motto for global awareness against HIV, a very special and very resilient virus that is haunting the medical community since the early ’80s. Although the first incident of death from AIDS was recorded as the “the Congolese man” in 1959, the AIDS epidemic officially begun on the 5th of June 1981.

The HIV, or AIDS as it was imprinted in people’s minds (it’s actually the name of the illness that is caused by HIV-1 and HIV-2 strains), is one of the few bugs that are called retro-viruses, the ones that specifically target the immune system. The truth is, it’s not HIV that causes the fatality, it’s the fact that people with AIDS have no immune system or, if they’re lucky, they are forced to take drugs so powerful that their organism can’t cope with and finally “gives up”. In patients with HIV, the virus is “disguised” within the infected cells of their own bodies, so that the immune system doesn’t attack them. And not only that, it’s cells of the immune system itself (T lymph cells) that carry the virus. It’s the perfect attack: the intruder takes over the “guards”, one by one, until the whole defense system is rendered inactive.

It’s that “sneaky” nature of these retro-viruses that made many people think that this might actually be a product of the Cold War era, a string of viruses that got out of hand from some biological weapons facility. Until recently, it was believed that scientists, that were involved in research with natural retro-viruses in chimpanzees during the ’70s in Africa (Cameroon), eventually messed up and the virus got loose from their labs by accident. Others say that the virus itself mutated and got transferred naturally to the human system, like many other diseases over the decades. In Wikipedia it is noted that “Calculating based on a fixed mutation rate, the jump from chimpanzee to human likely occurred during the French colonial period (1919–1960)”.

However, now it is believed that these things could not have happened so easily and rapidly without the “help” of the human himself. A military experiment that got out of hand? A misjudged use and bad handling of militarized viruses? A pharmaceutical company that got too far with its drug experiments? A truly natural mutation of the virus itself that made the jump to humans possible? We may never know for sure. One thing is certain: despite the efforts, HIV is still here after two and a half decades and it seems it will be here for a long time.

Since the HIV lives in the lymph system of the human body, it is carried with most body fluids in small or large amounts. This includes saliva, genital fluids, blood, tears, sweat, urine, milk, etc. However, in most cases the amount of infected lymph cells is so small that there is no chance of direct infection, except in two cases: blood and genital fluids. Direct contact on open wounds or ingestion of these two types of body fluids is indeed an infection hazard, even when the carrier of HIV is asymptomatic (not having AIDS). Even in these cases, the infectiousness of the virus is still very small, about 10 million times smaller that hepatitis-B (density in blood). The virus can survive outside the body (host) up to 1-2 days in dried stains of infected body fluids, but it’s still a short time compared to other viruses like hepatitis. Sterilization by heating at 56 degrees Celsius, boiling with water for 10 min, chlorine or a 70% solution of alcohol for 1 min or are more than enough to kill it.

The most regrettable thing about HIV is that, in practice, it is transmitted over the most natural and necessary things of human nature and any other mammal, which reproduction, childbirth and wounding. For childbirth, the mother and the embryo share body fluids during and after the pregnancy (nursing), thus mother-to-child is probably the most infectious situation of all. Next, anything that has to do with blood and open wounds, either in a hospital, a labor room, in dentistry, in a football field, anything that may cause the delicate human body to bleed, is a potential danger for HIV infection by a carrier. Since most of these situations require treatment by a trained professional, infection hazards are minimized simply by wearing rubber gloves and careful handling of blood.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem is sex, since it involves the large population and it’s much more “personal” in a way that general guidelines and precautions are not always followed. The fact that, during the ’80s the virus propagated rapidly through the homosexual communities and that no one was ready to talk about it for years, was a major factor for the spread of the disease. The solution is simple: unless we’re talking about long-term relationships or marriage (when both partners are faithful and medically checked), use condom. ALWAYS. It’s not a matter of birth-control, it’s a matter of HIV outbreak control. It only matters if it’s preventive and consistent. It’s not an option, it’s a responsibility for both partners.

What is the situation now? According to Fight-AIDS organization and UNAIDS, data up to June 2000 show that:

• 19 million HIV/AIDS related deaths have occurred
• 4 million of those deaths were children under 15 years old
• 3 million people died in 1999 alone, nearly 500,000 were children
• in 1999, there was one AIDS related death every 11.2 seconds and one new infection every 5.4 seconds
• nearly half of the population of sub-saharan teens and twenty-something adults are expected to die before or during their thirties

For those who think that AIDS is just another problem for third-world countries, think again. Recent studies show that, although the global outbreak seems to have passed its peak during the late ’90s, the lack of concern and relaxation of preventive measures (mostly using condoms in sex) have caused a new peak of the disease, up to 20% increase in some countries, primarily in the so-called “developed” world (Europe, US, etc).

Of course, the current situation is light years ahead of anything that was available as treatment in the ’80s. For AIDS patients in the developed countries, the life expectancy has been extended to years and decades through combined drugs and proper care. An AIDS vaccine is still 1-2 decades away according to scientists, but progress has been made, especially during the last few years with new data from Genetics and the way the human immune system works with cancer (Human Genome Project).

But for third-world countries, the problems are still the same: people do not have access or money for their treatment, cultural taboos prevent the wide use of preventive measures (condoms) and drug companies insist on protecting their patents and profits instead of licensing regional companies to produce cheap drugs. India has recently decided to go ahead with its own drug program for AIDS, supporting regional companies that produce “replicas” of more expensive drugs, accepting the risk of possible patent infringements and multi-million dollar lawsuits from US and other drug companies that are desperate to protect their patents.

What can we do to help? First, get informed about HIV and AIDS. Fear is the recipe for prejudice. Second, talk about it, get other people informed and alerted. Things look better, but the problem is still here and is still killing people. Third, if you want to get your PC involved too, visit the FightAIDS@Home project and download the WorldCommunityGrid version of the BOINC client software.

You can select one or more projects and let your PC produce results from analysis of scientific data during the idle time of your CPU. It can be set as the default screen saver or just another icon in the taskbar, since it takes up only a few MB of your RAM but run only when your PC is not doing anything at all. Thanks to the developer community at BOINC, the client software is extremely “gentle” and transparent, very stable and nearly unnoticed. If you’re connected with a fixed Internet connection and the client can update the data packets automatically without your response, you will probably forget that it’s there at all. However, your contribution is still extremely valuable for the scientific community that works on this outbreak for years.

For all these things, to remember and to keep fighting, please put at red ribbon somewhere this special day of the year. Make other people ask about it. Make them wear their own red ribbon next year.