Cause of Aids

AIDS is the final stage of a chronic infection with the human immunodeficiency virus. There are two types of this virus: HIV-1, which is the primary cause of AIDS worldwide, and HIV-2, found mostly in West Africa.

Inside the body HIV enters cells of the immune system, especially white blood cells known as T cells. These cells orchestrate a wide variety of disease-fighting mechanisms. Particularly vulnerable to HIV attack are specialized “helper” T cells known as CD4 cells. When HIV infects a CD4 cell, it commandeers the genetic tools within the cell to manufacture new HIV virus. The newly formed HIV virus then leaves the cell, destroying the CD4 cell in the process. No existing medical treatment can completely eradicate HIV from the body once it has infected human cells. 

 
The loss of CD4 cells endangers health because these cells help other types of immune cells respond to invading organisms. The average healthy person has over 1,000 CD4 cells per microliter of blood. In a person infected with HIV, the virus steadily destroys CD4 cells over a period of years, diminishing the cells’ protective ability and weakening the immune system. When the density of CD4 cells drops to 200 cells per microliter of blood, the infected person becomes vulnerable to AIDS-related opportunistic infections and rare cancers, which take advantage of the weakened immune defenses to cause disease.