HIV/AIDS
HIV, the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, better known as AIDS, is believed to have originated in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo around 1920. However, we do not know how many people were infected with the disease until 1980, when both the public and the medical community began to put together the causes between various symptoms.
HIV/AIDS is believed to have caused the death of 25-35 million people worldwide and today almost 38 million people are living with the infection. The virus infects helper T cells that are part of the immune system, then writes its genetic code into the genome of infected cells.
The deadly stage of HIV infection is known as AIDS- at this point, a person’s immune system is severely compromised, leading to susceptibility to viral, bacterial or fungal infections. It’s particularly difficult to cure due to the fact that even modern medicine isn’t capable of wiping the virus out of helper T cells completely, and even if we’d be able to do so, HIV could start to replicate within the human body anyway.
That being said, there have been two people cured of HIV/AIDS, both through bone marrow transplants, which were intended to cure cancer patients. So, while two is a very low number, these two cases prove that a cure is possible, if difficult.
