AIDS Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, better known as AIDS, is caused by the incurable HIV virus. AIDS is a fatal disease that deteriorates the immune system. There are two groups of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), HIV-1 which occurs worldwide and HIV-2 which occurs mainly in Africa. The HIV virus enters white blood cells and takes control of that cell's reproductive system and uses the system to reproduce. The white blood cell dies and the new HIV cells infect other white blood cells and repeat the process. If you have been infected with the AIDS disease you may not have any symptoms for the next ten years. The disease AIDS makes it more difficult for the body to control or eliminate less serious conditions, due to the loss of many white blood cells in the body. The most common causes of death among people with AIDS are pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma, which affect 70% of infected people. AIDS is transmitted in three ways. Intimate sexual contact is the most common. While direct contact with infected blood and transactions with children from the fetus of the infected mother also cause the disease. Despite some speculation, it is not possible to contract the disease from the air, food, water or insects. AIDS is a matter of life and death. Having the disease AIDS is a slow but inevitable death sentence. There is currently no cure or vaccine for this disease. There are medications that have proven effective in slowing the spread of this deadly disease. We know enough about how the infection is transmitted to protect ourselves from it. But too few people are listening to the AIDS message. Perhaps many simply don't like or don't want to believe what they hear, preferring to think that AIDS “can't happen to them”..