Jul 27, 2009 11:00 AM  CST  

AIDS Update: Chronic or Terminal Disease 

In the early 1980’s an epidemic struck America, one that is still with us today. That is the epidemic of HIV/AIDS. Many doctors practicing during this time remember seeing young men in their 20’s and 30’s coming to the hospital and just wasting away to their death. In 1983 this disorder was called Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. 

 

This meant that the immune system of these young men, and a few women, failed to protect them from ordinary and even unusual infections. About that same time the virus that caused this disease, the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, was detected and identified.

 

HIV/AIDS was deadly. It was certainly a terminal disease. It seemed clear very early on that it occurred frequently in homosexual men. It also occurred in intravenous drug users—those people using drugs who shared needles. When children, women, and heterosexual men came down with HIV/AIDS it was identified that blood transfusions, blood products, and in one famous case, dirty dental instruments could transfer the disease. 

 

For the first several years treating HIV/AIDS really meant treating the infections like eye infections, lung infections, skin infections, and blood infections, but not directly treating the HIV virus itself. Therefore, the complications of HIV/AIDS could be treated and somewhat managed but the disease was ultimately still terminal. 

 

We turned the corner in the 90’s after Ryan White became a famous child victim of HIV/AIDS. His national notoriety led to a government commitment to understand and treat the disease. One of the first effective medications was AZT. It actually seemed to slow the progress of the disease itself. But it wasn’t a cure.

 

The focus wasn’t just the treatment of HIV/AIDS but the prevention. Gay men were educated, needle sharing drug abusers had programs and education, and blood transfusions and other blood products were tested completely so that they no longer represent a risk of HIV/AIDS transmission. Those preventative measures are ongoing today and they have made a difference. It is estimated that thousands of at risk people do not have HIV/AIDS today because they paid attention to the safety warnings. 

 

Yet, when someone contracted the disease it was still considered terminal. End of life and hospice organizations were established to care for the dying HIV/AIDS patients. Then, surprisingly and rather suddenly, a whole new class of drugs was identified. The anti-retroviral drugs and proteace inhibitors used in combination actually seemed to reduce the infective HIV virus. 

 

Then, famous celebrities with HIV, like the basketball player Magic Johnson, didn’t die. In fact, they seemed to live normal lives. Medicine and research had a victory over this disease. Although many experts in the area are cautious when they speak, HIV/AIDS isn’t the terminal disease it once was. The infection may persist but it is controlled. HIV/AIDS patients don’t automatically die. They are living and with continuous medication and treatment, they are even thriving.

 

Today HIV/AIDS is still a terrible disease. There is the social stigma related to it and it requires continuous, everyday treatment. But it has changed from a terminal disease to a chronic, controllable disease.

 

Source: Covenant Hospice
http://www.covenanthospice.org

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