HIV

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome – a spectrum of clinical conditions – caused by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is characterized by the vulnerability of victim to opportunistic pathogens and increased risk of Kaposi’s sarcoma and other rare forms of cancer. As its name suggests, HIV largely infects human’s CD4+ T cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells. After infecting the cells, HIV takes control of host cellular machinery to synthesize viral proteins and replicates rapidly. One of the key symptoms of HIV infection is the low count of circulating CD4+ T cells. When enough number of T cells have been infected by HIV, the host immune system can no longer perform its normal functions, and the victim becomes susceptible to other infections. Maximum cases of AIDS worldwide are caused by the more infectious subtype HIV-1. For the same reason, most studies of HIV (including this thesis) focus on the HIV-1 subtype.

Subpages of this page gives a brief background on HIV-1 and its treatments. The texts are taken from my doctoral thesis submitted at School of Health Sciences, UKZN, Durban.

If you use any part of the information from here, Kindly cite my thesis and other research articles published to fulfill the requirement of PhD at UKZN.