HIV/AIDS

6th Grade

Central Bucks School District

Introduction

• Open your booklet to page 1 and complete the self-test.

Objectives

We will learn:

• What Is the Immune System?

• What is AIDS?

• How HIV attacks the Immune System

• How do people get AIDS?

• What is the truth about living with HIV/AIDS in the 21st century?

What Is the Immune System?

• A person’s body routinely fights off the germs, and the person remains healthy. At other times, we catch an infection or disease and recovers from it with the help of rest and or medication. In both situations, the person’s immune system is doing its job. The immune system defends the body against germs, including viruses, and bacteria.

Our Blood• Blood is an important part of the immune

system. Blood contains white cells and red cells. There is one large white blood cell to every 500 or so tiny red blood cells. White blood cells help defend the body against disease.

How many white blood cells are their in this picture?

Parts of White Blood Cells

• Two important kinds of white blood cells are macrophages and T cells.

Macrophages swallow germs.

They also signal T cells that the body is being attacked. Then the T cells signal other white blood cells to form antibodies.

An antibody is another substance that helps the body fight disease. Each antibody recognizes just one kind of germ. Once locked to an antibody, a germ can no longer attack the body.

Most of the time, white blood cells are able to destroy the germs, and the body then flushes the dead germs out of the bloodstream

What is AIDS?

• When HIV, the AIDS virus, enters a person’s body, it stays there forever.

• The body is unable to destroy the virus or stop it from doing damage.

• Ten or more years may pass before an HIV-infected person shows any signs of sickness. But throughout that time, the infected person can pass the AIDS virus to other people.

When the AIDS viruses enter a person’s body the viruses attack T cells and macrophages, the very cells that should get rid of the viruses.

How HIV attacks the immune system?

• White blood cells produce antibodies that help attack the HIV viruses.

• Many of the viruses are killed but so are the white blood cells they live in.

• HIV viruses mutate so they are safe until the immune system can produce antibodies that recognize the mutated viruses.

• Eventually, the viruses destroy many more white blood cells than the immune system can replace.

As the immune system weakens, the body of the infected person begins to show symptoms of infections it can’t control. The immune system is no longer able to fight off germs.

Complete Questions and Answers on page 6

Photo courtesy National Institute of Allergy and Infectious DiseasesHIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is shown budding out of a human immune cell.

How do people get AIDS?

• Sexual contact involving the exchange of three body fluids: semen, blood, and vaginal secretions.

• Sharing needles used to shoot intravenous (IV) drugs.

• Transfusions of contaminated blood and blood products.

• Transmission from infected mothers to their infants during pregnancy or at birth. (This is highly unlikely if the mother is treated with anti-AIDS drugs and the baby is delivered by Caesarean section.)

• The chance of getting AIDS through a blood transfusion is very small. This problem has been greatly reduced by –

• Screening out donors (since 1983) who may be at risk of getting AIDS.

• Testing all blood donations in the United States (since 1985) with the AIDS virus antibody test.

Can I get AIDS from a blood transfusion?

Can I get AIDS by donating blood?

• No! There is no risk of getting AIDS by being a blood donor. All the equipment used is new, sterile, used only once, and discarded after it is used.

Can I get AIDS from another person’s tears or sweat?

• None of the known ways of getting infected with the AIDS virus includes tears or sweat. There have been no known cases of infection with the AIDS virus from those body fluids. The only body fluids that are known to infect another person are blood, semen, and vaginal secretions.

You haven’t mentioned saliva.

• While it is true that the virus has been found in saliva, no cases of infection with the AIDS virus are known to have occurred that way. The only body fluids that are known to infect another person are semen, blood, and vaginal secretions.

Can you get HIV/AIDS from hugging, kissing, or sharing eating utensils?

If both kissers have open sores or cuts in the mouth, it is possible for one to infect the other with various germs. However, passing the AIDS virus this way has not been reported. This is considered a remote possibility, but not a probability of passing the AIDS virus. There are no reported cases of family members becoming infected by kissing, hugging, and sharing eating utensils when caring for persons with AIDS.

The AIDS virus is not spread by…

• Holding hands, hugging, social kissing, or dancing.

• Sneezing, coughing, or spitting.• Using toilets, sinks, bathtubs, doorknobs, or

swimming pools.• Dishes, forks, knives, spoons, or food itself.• Mosquito or other insect bites.• Reading and learning about the disease! Some

people think learning about the disease makes you do the things that may put you at risk of getting AIDS. That’s the worst rumor of all.

HIV/AIDS Review

• Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

• Human Immunodeficiency Virus

• HIV attacks the body’s immune system

• It leaves the body open to many deadly diseases called opportunistic diseases.

Opportunistic diseases take advantage of weakened immune

systems. These include…

Kaposi’s sarcoma, a kind of skin cancer

Pneumocystis carinii, a kind of

pneumonia

Cryptosporidiosis, an intestinal parasite that

causes extreme diarrhea

Candidiasis, a fungus that coats the inside of the throat as hard,

white patches of growth

What Causes AIDS?

• HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), is a newly discovered kind of virus called a retrovirus. Retroviruses are difficult for scientists to understand because they continually develop new structures.

• The ability of retroviruses to change structure also complicates the development of medical treatment for AIDS.

• The HIV virus is the direct cause of AIDS.

• The HIV virus itself causes the damage and eventual demise of the immune system, which leads to AIDS.

Click here to watch an online simulation of how AIDS works.

HIV-1 budding from a lymphocyte.

http://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/projects/celtrion/celtrion5.html

Living with AIDS/HIV in the 21st Century

• In 1982, a person diagnosed with AIDS had little to no chance of survival. Today, people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS have hope of living longer due to the development of antiretroviral drugs, but…

• The drugs slow down the growth of the virus; however the virus remains in your body. People who take the antiretroviral drugs often suffer from intense and frequent diarrhea, vomiting, tingling of the mouth and tongue, hair loss, severe fatigue, and loss of appetite. Their quality of life is poor. Again, these drugs only slow down the growth of the virus, they don’t kill it.

There is still NO cure for HIV/AIDS.

 http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/reports/hiv3rddecade/chapter1.htm

Complete page 11 in your packet.