Mental Health
New AIDS-like Disease Appearing in Asians
On June 5th 1981, The United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recorded five gay men in Los Angeles with an unnamed disease similar to an pneumonia and what they believed to be a mutation of lymphadenopathy (swelling of the lymph nodes). The disease was then detected in New York among the same demographic including drug users who injected narcotics.
With the epidemic gaining full momentum, reported a year later among hemophiliacs and Haitians in the USA, and in several European countries, doctors and scientists find that the mysterious illness attacks the immune symptom of its victims at a rapid and irreversible pace.
The name AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is born.
With more than a million people living with AIDS in the U.S. alone, science and health organizations have made strides to provide lifesaving treatment to victims of HIV and AIDS.
Now a new disease, with symptoms similar to that of AIDS, though not contagious or non -life threatening, has hit the Asian and Asian-American demographic, reminiscent of the suspiciously isolated attack of HIV and AIDS as mentioned above.
Boston Associated Press reports that researchers have identified a mysterious new disease that has left scores of people in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms even though they are not infected with HIV.
"The patients' immune systems become damaged, leaving them unable to fend off germs as healthy people do. What triggers this isn't known, but the disease does not seem to be contagious," Boston AP reports
According to USA Today, the disease blocks immune systems signals leaving patients vulnerable to viruses, fungal infections and parasites, but especially microbacteria, a group of germs similar to tuberculosis that can cause severe lung damage.
The disease is being called "adult-onset Immunodeficiency Syndrome'
While researchers are not sure what causes this mysterious ailment or why, they find that AIS is treatable. However, without careful consideration and proper treatment doctors can and have diagnosed patients suffering from AIS with Tuberculosis.
CNN reveals that the first cases date back to 2004, with most of them occurring in Thailand and Taiwan. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been studying the disease since 2005.
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