Is it true that almost everyone who gets HIV/AIDS eventually dies from the disease?
Out of every 1000 people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS how many end up dying of the disease? When the disease first came out, it was said that it was always terminal, that medical help could only slow down the process. Is that true? If not, what are the actual figures?
Infectious Diseases - 10 Answers
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1 :
initially, but with life style changes and single partners instead of drug use and orgies, and new anti viral meds, things have slowed down, end stage HIV is horrible, with blindness, cachexia, diarrhea, pain, etc. I've seen it in the early 80's. But some people never change. go to cdc.gov for more exact figures. you can look them up there. not everyone dies from it, they may have combination diseases, or environmental causes like car accidents, falls, etc
2 :
A majority of people living with HIV/AIDS live perfectly normal lives. A person can live with HIV for many many years before it becomes full-blown AIDS which is represented by a persons T-cell count below 200, thus meaning the body doesn't have enough protector cells to naturally fight off infections, other diseases, etc. With a regimen of daily medications referred to as HAART, it has been shown that the life expectancy for people that acquire AIDS, averages at around 24 years considering the person's daily lifestyle, such as the foods they eat, the environment they are in, the proper intake of medications, etc.
3 :
Almost unless you have money and luck. NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Jul 01 - In countries with good patient access to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), persons infected with HIV currently experience mortality rates similar to that of the general population in the first 5 years after seroconversion, members of the CASCADE (Concerted Action on Seroconversion to AIDS and Death in Europe) collaboration report. According to their report in the July 2 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, an excess mortality persists in persons who seroconverted following injection drug use and among those infected for more than 5 years. In contrast to CASCADE findings, previous investigations into the effect of HAART on mortality lacked information about the duration of HIV infection, project leader Dr. Kholoud Porter, at the UK Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit in London, and colleagues note. CASCADE is a collaboration of 23 cohorts in Europe, Australia, and Canada, with well-estimated data on HIV seroconversion. The current analysis involves individuals 15 years of age or older at seroconversion who contracted HIV through sexual exposure or injection drug use. Included are 16,534 individuals followed for a median of 6.3 years (range 1 day to 23.8 years). "We found that the gap in mortality rates between HIV-infected individuals in our study and the general population narrowed in every calendar period from 1996 onward," the authors report. For the period 2004-2006, excess mortality was 94% lower than pre-1996 levels. Exposure to HIV through injection drug use was associated with a 4-fold higher mortality risk compared with rates among men who have sex with men. Apart from risks directly associated with substance abuse, the investigators attribute the greater mortality in these patients to co-infections, comorbid mental illness, and differences in access and adherence to HAART. The excess mortality observed with longer duration of infection is based on data that include individuals infected prior to the HAART era, Dr. Porter's team explains. "Nevertheless," they add, "it is likely that even with current standards of HIV management, some long-term excess mortality would remain because problems of toxicity, resistance, and therapy adherence are likely to increase with time receiving HAART." The CASCADE collaborators conclude: "Ongoing monitoring of excess mortality will be important as new treatment advances are implemented in an attempt to further reduce mortality rates among HIV-infected individuals."
4 :
First off, HIV is not AIDS. The HIV virus attacks the host cell and injectes a RNA strand and multiplies killing the host cell. This occurs billions of times per day. Eventually the hosts cells are over run by the HIV virus and the T-Cell count drops below a operable level. This is then known as AIDS (Aquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome). The quality of life is reduced dramically as almost all illnesses have a devastating effect on the body because there are very limited T-Cells to fight them off. Eventually the person dies of infection and oppurtunistic nfections that only effect AIDS patients due to there decreased immune systems ability to fight back.
5 :
first, just to clarrify, HIV is the virus, AIDS is the disease it causes. well, almost no one actually dies of AIDS, it suppresses the immune system enough that something else kills the patient. I think i very rare cases where the patient manages to fend-off other infections long enough, the HIV virus itself can start directly attacking the brain and causing dementia, but oi think almost no one dies of AIDS alone. as yet, there is no cure for AIDS or HIV, pretty much nothing can remove the infection from the body once it has taken hold. There are some reports of people who seem to have spontaniously recoverred, but they are very rare, and it is possible that the original diagnosis of HIV was incorrect. I guess with drugs being able to extand life for up to something like 30 years, that does give quite a lot of time for someone with HIV to die of something else before they develop AIDS... hit by a bus, shot, car crash, industrial accidents, child birth... etc. The proportion who die before they get AIDS would depend on the availability of drugs and risk of death from other causes in the country you are looking at, it would be very hard to find over-all starts on this for the whole world, you could try the world health organisation (WHO) if you really need a number.
6 :
They have a lot of good medicine now that can prolong the lives of people living with AIDS. There's people out there that have been living with AIDS for 20, 30 years+ and they're fine.
7 :
Actually, AIDS or HIV don't kill people, it is the secondary infections that kill people- like the flu.
8 :
HIV stands for Human immuno-deficiency virus, human deficient immune system problems....they don't die from HIV they die from the secondary infection they get if their immune system is too weak to fight any thing off anymore. that is why people died so much when it first came about, the opportunistic infections. now with the HAART treatments, people are living longer normal lives. and dying from other reasons, such as car accidents or whatever else people die from, jeaous lovers, drug overdoses.etc...
9 :
Yes. In countries such as US ,the time required for the retro virus to destroy the immune system can be longer than that in countries where little or no treatment is available or accessed. The drugs that treat HIV/AIDS are expensive and carry their own nasty side effects. The best treatment is not to be a self-deceiving fool or, if you should get the problem,give up and die as soon as possible,since you have no viable future.
10 :
We all eventually die. some just sooner.
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