AIDS
(eɪdz)
Also Aids.
[Acronym: see def.]
1. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome: an illness (often if not always fatal) in which opportunistic infections or malignant tumours develop as a result of a severe loss of cellular immunity, which is itself caused by earlier infection with a retrovirus, HIV, transmitted in sexual fluids and blood. Freq. attrib. Cf. acquired immune deficiency syndrome s.v. acquired ppl. a. (a).
| 1982 Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Rep. (U.S. Centers for Dis. Control) 24 Sept. 508 CDC defines a case of AIDS as a disease, at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell-mediated immunity, occurring in a person with no known cause for diminished resistance to that disease. Ibid. 10 Dec. 653 The infant had no known contact with an AIDS patient. 1983 New Scientist 3 Feb. 289/1 In just one year the list of people at risk from AIDS has lengthened from male homosexuals, drug-abusers and Haitians, to include the entire population [of the U.S.A.]. 1983 Observer 26 June 10/9 Across the country, AIDS hysteria is being encouraged. 1984 McGraw-Hill Yearbk. Sci. & Technol. 1985 68/1 Many AIDS patients experience malaise, fevers, anorexia, and weight loss for weeks, months, or years prior to the documentation of their initial opportunistic infection. 1985 Daily Tel. 22 July 15/8 A cancer clinic in the Bahamas has been ordered to close..after two patients..were given serum infected with HTLV-III, the deadly virus which causes Aids. 1987 Sunday Times (Colour Suppl.) 21 June 35/3 One of the mysteries of HIV is why the virus can lie dormant in some people for long periods, possibly for life, while in others Aids develops more quickly. |
2. Special Comb. AIDS-related a., related to or associated with AIDS; spec. in AIDS-related complex, a set of symptoms that often precedes the full development of AIDS, including lymphadenopathy, fever, weight loss, and malaise.
| 1983 N.Y. Times 1 May i. 26/5 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis..will look at potential drug treatments in animals for an AIDS-related form of pneumonia, pneumocystis carinii. 1984 European Jrnl. Cancer & Clin. Oncol. XX. 169/1 This syndrome has occasionally been described as ‘pre-AIDS’ or ‘AIDS-related complex’. 1986 Daily Tel. 3 Feb. 5/5 Of 34 mothers who gave birth to children with Aids at his hospital, only four had any symptoms of the disease or Aids-related complex, a milder form. 1987 Economist 28 Feb. 93/2 After a female prostitute..died..from AIDS, the government launched big campaigns aimed at preventing the spread of the virus, so spreading interest in AIDS-related stocks. |