AIDS — The clinical picture

Abstract

A precise definition of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is still not available because relatively little is known about the basic disease process and the resulting immunological defects. The working definition from the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre at Collindale adopted from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta in the United States is as follows:

For the limited purposes of epidemiological surveillance a case of acquired immune deficiency syndrome is defined as one in which a person has

• (1) A reliably diagnosed disease that is at least moderately indicative of an underlying cellular immune deficiency (such as an opportunistic infection, or Kaposi’s sarcoma in a person aged less than 60 years)

• (2) No known underlying cause of cellular immune deficiency nor any other cause of reduced resistance reported to be associated with that disease.