On AIDS

1993/05/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Medikuntza

In the journal “Nature”, in two articles published last March, it was explained that the viruses causing AIDS accumulate in the nodes of the lymphatic systems that form the defense of the body against infections.

During the absence of symptoms it was very difficult to detect the virus in the blood, since very few units were detected. Therefore, before symptoms appeared, the complete disappearance of the immunization system was very difficult. Therefore, some researchers have had many doubts about the AIDS virus.

The phase without symptoms can range from one to 13 years or more and, according to researchers, at this stage, the virus remained unaffected within white blood cells called “CD4 T cells”. White blood cells are very important for the human defense system, so if viruses damage white blood cells the body would be defenseless. As long as they are not affected by AIDS viruses, immunization system cells do not detect these cells.

The number of white blood cells is 1,000 in every cubic millimeter of blood and when this amount drops to 500 increases the risk of infection. Researchers in the US have recently discovered that the virus does not accumulate in the blood, but in 25% of T CD4 lymphocytes in the lymph nodes. In addition, in 1% of infected lymphocytes the virus reproduces at tremendous speed. This explains the enormous loss of defense that occurs in the last phase of the disease.