Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, is a serious disease. It is the last stage of a virus called Human Immuno-deficiency Virus, HIV. The disease renders the body's immune system. When this happens, the body is unable to resist invasion by microorganisms that cause serious infection. An individual may be infected with the virus for more than ten years before receiving a diagnosis of AIDS.
             In order to fully understand AIDS, and individual must be aware of the ways in which HIV effects the body. Lymphocytes are white blood cells that help the body fight pathogens. The two types of lymphocytes are B cells, which produce antibodies, and T cells, whose helpers stimulate the B cells. These antibodies are the proteins that help to destroy disease-causing organisms. When a person contracts HIV, the virus infects cells, including the T helper cells. The decrease in T helper cells negatively affects the immune system. The body loses much of its ability to fight pathogens.
             The first case of AIDS was identified in New York in 1979. The first group of people in the United States of America with AIDS was homosexual males. As a result, individuals believed that the disease only affected this population. Many people believe that the virus spread as people traveled. Because AIDS is extremely common in Africa and species of monkeys on the continent are afflicted with similar diseases, this is one theory as to where HIV originated. It was not until 1983-84 that scientists working at the National Cancer Institute in the US and the Pasteur Institute in France identified the HIV virus.
             It is estimated that one in every five hundred U.S. college students may be HIV positive. Teenagers are a primary risk group for contracting HIV. Over one-fifth of people with AIDS are in their 20s and most likely were infected as teens. This disease is the seventh leading cause of death among 15-24 year-olds in the United States o...