JOSH@IBM.COM (Josh Knight) (08/02/90)
With respect to the CDC definition of AIDS, it is my memory that after HIV was generally accepted to be the cause of AIDS, the definition was changed to include HIV+ and any one of three opportunistic infections, of which PCP was one. HIV- plus two of the three or significant weight loss and persistent diarrhea also sticks in my mind, but I could be wrong. This is in connection with the putative transmission of HIV from dentist to patient: the patient has AIDS. Someone asked about being infected but asymptomatic for a long time. There is an article in a recent Scientific American: %T AIDS-Related Infections %A John Mills %A Henry Masur %J Scientific American %V 263 %N 2 %D August 1990 %P 50-57 %X Until the AIDS virus is defeated, hope for improving survival time and the quality of a patient's life will rest to a great extent on improved therapies for the opportunistic infections of AIDS. In response to the question marco@ozdaltx.UUCP (Steve Giammarco) recommends a T4/T8 workup. The SciAm article has this nasty graph plotting T4 counts and showing where the various opportunistic infections are likely to occur. Worth reading if you think you're positive but haven't done anything about it yet... And lewis@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (S. Thomas Lewis) asks about transmission by mosquitoes. The best evidence against transmission by any insect vector is the total lack of AIDS in children in African households with adults with AIDS. If there were any significant chance of transmission by this method, there would be huge numbers of infected children. The only infected children are those born to infected mothers. AIDS is not transmitted by insect bites. If it were, the epidemiology of the disease in Africa would be completely different. In case it isn't obvious, there are LOTS of insects in the average African dwelling. Josh Knight josh@ibm.com