BL 03-06-14 10-11am Immunology of AIDS - Cohen Flashcards
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome defn.
Definition kept changing as learned more about its course & and causes
- Originally: ‘Any occurrence of an opportunistic infection or Kaposi’s sarcoma in pt w/out a previous Hx of, or apparent cause for, immune deficiency.’
- Now overall Dx made by detecting infection w/ HIV-1, the AIDS virus
test or by low Th (CD4+) cells
“Seropositive” to Dx HIV
Ppl are ‘seropositive’ if they have Ab to HIV
= most common way in which infection is 1st detected
Using Symptoms / CBC to Dx AIDs
HIV becomes AIDS once:
- pts get symptoms of opportunistic infections or Kaposi’s sarcoma
OR
- their ►Th (CD4+) cells fall below 200/μL of blood (normal range: 500-1000/ μL)
Cases of HIV in US in 2012
Total: ~35 million
Adults: ~31 million
Women: ~16 million
Children (<15yo): ~2 million
Cases of new infections w/ HIV in 2012
Total: 2.3 million
Adults: 2.2 million
Children (<15yo): 260,000
AIDS deaths in 2012
Total: 1.6 milllion
Adults: 1.5 million
Children (<15yo): 230,000
Per minute new HIV infections & deaths from AIDS
Every minutes:
- 4 ppl get HIV
- 4 die of AIDs
History of AIDS
- 1st described in 1981
- by 2004, 5th leading cause of death in the world, 4th in developing countries
Deaths from AIDS worldwide
- so far, 36 million have died worldwide
Cumulative cases of AIDS in US & number of deaths
- 1,160,000 cumulative cases of AIDS by end of 2012
- 800,000 had died
- 1,144,500 ppl living w/HIV in US, w/16% not knowing it
- 50,000 new cases each year
New treatments of AIDS results
- death rates have fallen remarkably
- from 38,000 in 1996 to 15,500 in 2010
OraQuick
= home test for HIV antibody, approved in May ‘12
- produces only 1:5000 false positives
- produces 1:12 false negatives
- –> so it’s useful but not definitive for reducing that 20%
AIDS in Colorado
- ~11,000 ppl living w/ HIV/AIDS in CO
- Incidence in CO has been falling since 1993
- in 2011, ~400 new cases & 150 deaths
Cause of AIDS
<— caused by virus called HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virus)
- HIV-2 has been isolated in West Africa
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
A nontransforming retrovirus
= i.e., an RNA virus that carries no oncogene & reproduces itself by copying its RNA into DNA by means of its own enzyme, reverse transcriptase
- Similar to visna virus of sheep, equine infectious anemia virus, and feline immunodeficiency virus
—> all cause slow, ultimately fatal illnesses
Closest relation of HIV & Development of HIV
- HIV is most closely related to a Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, SIV
- It is thought that HIV-1 evolved recently from SIV, perhaps as recently as the 1940s & possibly in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo)
- We can try to determine when it originated by checking banks of stored human sera for Abs
- 1st sera in USA w/ Ab to HIV-1 are found in 1978
- 1st seen sera In Africa are from 1959
- HIV-1 sequences have been cloned from blood sample of 1959 from D.R. Congo
- Thus, seems relatively new
- Probably jumped from simian to human & not yet adapted to its new host (similar in that respect to Ebola and Marburg viruses)
Movement of HIV/AIDS
Seroepidemiology indicates that HIV moved:
- to the Caribbean in the mid-60’s (perhaps brought by Cuban soldiers returning from Angola)
- to Europe a bit later
Epidemic in USA started in New York, Los Angeles, & San Francisco
- probably brought in by men who had vacationed in Haiti
- By 2012, AIDS has been detected in every country in the world
Haitians & AIDS
Very high incidence of AIDS among recent Haitian immigrants & refugees
- made ppl think Haitians were particularly at risk
- now known to be untrue
- ‘risk groups’ now replaced by ‘risky behaviors’
Antigenic variability of HIV
HIV = most antigenically variable pathogenic virus yet encountered
- Reverse transcriptase is a highly error-prone enzyme, w/out proofreading capability
- –> makes mistake in ~1/100,000 base replications
- –> so infected ppl have many variants in their body
Risk groups vs. Risk behaviors
- “Risk groups” have now been replaced by “Risky Behaviors”
Risky behavior is whatever increases your chance of receiving an inoculum of HIV
= sexually transmitted. so frequent sex is risky if it involves partners who might have HIV
= Any lesion on or injury to mucous membranes increases risk.
= Injection of blood containing virus is highly risky
Drugs use is NOT thought of as risky, per se, nor is use of sexual stimulants like amyl nitrite.
Heterosexual contacts now account for more than half of new cases worldwide, & more than
half of those are women and girls.
Risk of getting HIV infection from injection of blood containing the virus
= highly risky, but much less so than w/ blood containing hepatitis virus
= In over 3000 reports of accidental exposures of US health care workers to HIV, only 9 were
documented to have become antibody-positive
Children w/ HIV
- Over 10,000 children have been reported as HIV+ in the USA
= mostly of mothers whose behaviors put them at high risk for acquiring HIV infection (drug abusers, sex workers)
Prognosis of AIDS
- 60% of all reported cases have died
- 95% of those Dxed before 1985 have died
- Original impression: most pts in whom AIDS was diagnosed would die of the disease, with mean survival time of ~3.5 years
- Now, w/treatment, much more optomistic than that
- New treatments have extended life expectancy remarkably.
- None of these treatments was available when the AIDS pandemic started.