On a summer day in 1981, an unusual pneumonia, called Pneumocystis carinii, affected four persons, each of them had been in excellent health. Shortly after, the new kind of illness characterized by new acquired cellular immunodeficiency made its début in the New England Journal of Medicine. It’s a kind of “a distinct and unusual clinical syndrome. All were exclusively homosexual and had been in excellent health before late 1980.”
That story, as it turned out, signaled the beginning of the age of acquired immune deficiency syndrome known as AIDS. During my recent reading of three interns’ diary, I learned more about how the disease were soon recognized in five children with identical symptoms. The story of full-fledged explosion of paediatric AIDS was told by the interns when they worked in a major New York medical centre in 1985. They didn’t encounter that many deaths in paediatric wards (because children tended to recover from illnesses) until the AIDS brought in more and more sick children.
Before AIDS, those interns drew blood, inserted intravenous cannula, and did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation without giving it a second thought. Not any more with the concern over the rampant spread of AIDS. All house officers wear gloves. The increased use of latex gloves has caused a worldwide shortage of rubber around 1986.
Looking back, we saw many similarities between our fight against AIDS and Covid-19. The more I think about them, the more similar they look. At the beginning, we were
all taken aback by a new kind of illness. Before scientific breakthrough, the only way to prevent HIV infection has focused on behavioural interventions. This was somewhat working but not a panacea. With time, we saw treatment options other than primary prevention. Availability of more than 30 antiretroviral drugs has given better quality of life for more than 38 million people who are now living with HIV, not to mention markedly lower mortality.
The rest is history.
No comments:
Post a Comment