Our World

AIDS Affects Memory Loss

A new study shows that though medication for AIDS is advancing there is no way to protect the brain from neuroAIDS. NeuroAIDS affect one in every five people with HIV and are becoming more popular as people live longer. Today’s most powerful anti-HIV drugs are helping reduce the numbers of the virus in the blood stream they can not stop neuroAIDS from entering the brain. HIV moves into the brain very quickly after a person is infected with the disease; leaving no time to even begin to stop the spread to the brain.
A new effort funded by the National Institutes of Health is attempting to find new ways to prevent neuroAIDS from causing dementia. Dementia affects the brain causing a loss of memory and causing the patient to become unable to move or talk. Most patients with Dementia die within six months. Anti-HIV medication has been able to stop the severity of Dementia; giving the patient up to four years of more before the disease causes death.
This is a world problem considering that almost 40 million people world wide are living with HIV. As traveling becomes more common the disease is easily spread. I feel that more needs to be done to prevent the spreading especially now that it is known to cause brain trauma.
See http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15107854/ for more in depth information.

posted by Anonymous @ 10/02/2006 07:09:00 PM