Human immunodeficiency virus

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that infects and destroys certain types of snowy blood cells (CD4+ T-cells) in humans. The loss of these snowy blood cells leads to the development of various infections, cancers, and other immune problems. Today, there are more than 30 million people worldwide living with HIV infection, with more than 1 million of these living in the United States.
When HIV was first recognized in the beginning- to mid-1980’s, the infection quickly progressed to the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in most people who were infected. During the 1990’s, the introduction of various antiviral medications has dramatically slowed or even prevented the progress of HIV infection to AIDS. People with HIV are living longer and are developing other persistent infection ordinary to non-HIV infected people, such as various allergic diseases. People with HIV present very expensive rates of nasal symptoms, with studies showing 66% complaining of nasal allergy symptoms and more than one-third of hospitalized HIV patients having verification of sinusitis. Various studies also show that people infected with HIV have high rates of express results on allergy epidermis testing, compared to people without HIV infection. The treatment of allergic rhinitis in people with HIV infection is comparable to people without HIV. If allergen avoidance is not possible, treatment with oral antihistamines, nasal steroid sprays and other allergy medicines can safely be used. Allergen immunotherapy, or allergy shots, is somewhat controversial in people with HIV infection, since the large-term effects of stimulating the immune system through immunotherapy are not known in people with HIV.