KUWAIT: Kuwait is keen on protecting the confidentiality of AIDS patients, said an official at the Health Ministry. Head of the ministry's AIDS, statistics , and information office Dr. Hind Al-Shomar said that the dealing with AIDS patients is done according to law decree 62 of 1992. She noted that AIDS patients should not be isolated and have the right to live a normal life at home, at work, or in the society in general. The World Health Organization (WHO) stressed on the importance of giving AIDS patients all their rights as any other patients, she emphasized.

AIDS patients are given medicine to strengthen their immune systems and reduce their suffering, she said, adding that there was no cure for AIDS. Since the discovery of the Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 1981, scientists discovered several facts on its transfer from a person to another, she said.

The virus does not transfer through shaking hands, hugs, sharing food or drinks, sneezing, or sharing towels, he pointed out. The main way for its transfer is sexual intercourse, she said. Other ways are the transfer of contaminated blood and the transfer of organs without checking them carefully, she added.

In addition, the virus could also be transferred through the use of contaminated needles, including those used by drug addicts, toothbrushes, and sharp objects, she said. A mother carrying the virus transfers it to her baby through pregnancy, delivery, or breast-feeding, she added.

Al-Shomar said that the AIDS symptoms could appear ten years after a person catches the virus. When a person gets the virus, he could suffer from symptoms close to flu symptoms like fever, tiredness, coughing, headache, or depression which could last for a week or two, she noted.

In late phases, an AIDS patient could suffer from symptoms including dramatic weight loss, which could be 10 percent per month, general fatigue, nausea, headache, severe diarrhea, rashes accompanies by strong itching, fever and sweating during the night, spleen swelling, and menopause, she said.

The first AIDS case was diagnosed in the United States in 1981. Since its discovery, HIV virus killed more than 25 million people. In 2005, around three million people, including more than 500,000 children, died because of the HIV virus.

Since the end of 2008, over 33 million live with the virus, 50 percent of which are women, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) that was published in November 2009. The Middle East is the region with the least number of AIDS patients, about 380,000 people in 2007.

A CNN report showed last week former US president Bill Clintons as saying that scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases say discovered three human antibodies that neutralize more than 90 percent of the current circulating HIV-1 strains. - Kuwait Times