(CNN Student News) -- World AIDS Day is observed around the globe on December 1. Since the first World AIDS Day in 1988, governments, organizations and charities have worked to raise awareness of the global AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. Use the information in this One-Sheet to provide students with an overview about HIV and AIDS. How widespread is HIV/AIDS? The UNAIDS/WHO 2007 AIDS Epidemic Update notes that since 1981, when HIV/AIDS was first identified in the U.S., more than 25 million people worldwide have died from AIDS-related illnesses. It estimates that today, nearly 33.2 million people throughout the world are living with HIV. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that includes more than one million Americans.
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Use this information to provide students with an overview of HIV and AIDS
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You may have heard that people die from @placeholder, but this isn't technically the case.
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People with @placeholder die from the opportunistic infections that AIDS allows to take hold, not from AIDS itself.
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People with AIDS die from the opportunistic infections that @placeholder allows to take hold, not from AIDS itself.
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Likewise, you can't rely on symptoms to determine if someone has @placeholder, because the symptoms of AIDS are similar to the symptoms of other diseases.
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Likewise, you can't rely on symptoms to determine if someone has AIDS, because the symptoms of @placeholder are similar to the symptoms of other diseases.
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In order to be diagnosed with @placeholder, a person must be HIV positive and have a T-cell count below 200 (a normal count ranges from 500 to 1,800 per cubic millimeter of blood), or have one or more opportunistic infections, according to the CDC.
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In order to be diagnosed with AIDS, a person must be HIV positive and have a T-cell count below 200 (a normal count ranges from 500 to 1,800 per cubic millimeter of blood), or have one or more opportunistic infections, according to the @placeholder.
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By studying the way that HIV attacks immune cells, scientists have developed drugs to fight both @placeholder and its associated infections and cancers.