HEALTH AND WELLNESS

                   John, who grew up in Scotland, dreamed of winning the lottery. “I bought a lottery ticket every week, “he says. “It cost me just a small amount of money, but that ticket gave me hope of gaining everything I ever wanted.” Kazushinge, who lives in Japan, loved horse racing. “Gambling at the racetrack with my friends was a great deal of fun, and I sometimes won large sums of money,” he recalls. “Bingo was my favorite game,” says Linda, who lives in Australia. “This habit cost me about $30 a week, but I loved the thrill of winning.” John, Kazushige, and Linda viewed gambling as a relatively harmless form of entertainment. Hundreds of millions of people around the world share that viewpoint. A 1999 Gallup poll showed that two thirds of Americans approved of gambling. In 1998, American gamblers spent about $50 billion on legalized gambling –more than they spent on movie tickets, recorded music, spectator sports, theme parks, and video games combi

                                                                                 WHAT ARE ARVs? In a healthy person, helper T cells stimulate or activate the immune system to attack infections. HIV particularly targets these helper T cells. It uses the cells to replicate itself, weakening and destroying helper T cells until the immune system is seriously compromised. Antiretroviral drugs [ARVs] disrupt this replication process. Currently, four main types of ARVs are administered. NUCLEOSIDE ANALOGUES and NON-NUCLEOSIDE ANALOGUES prevent HIV from copying itself onto a person’s DNA. PROTEASE INHIBITORS block a specific protease enzyme in infected cells from reconstructing the virus and producing more HIV. FUSION INHIBITORS aim to prevent HIV from entering cells. By suppressing HIV replication, ARVs can slow the progression from HIV infection to AIDS, dubbed the most severe clinical form of HIV disease ARV therapy is widely administered in high-income countries. Howe

At the Central Market o Lilongwe, Malawi, Grace sells luxury shoes. She appears happy and healthy. Her cheerful smile, though, hide a tragic story. In 1993, Grace and her husband were overjoyed at the birth of their daughter, Timmy. At the outset, Timmy seemed to be in good health. Yet, she soon stopped gaining weight and contracted one infection after another. At the age of three, Timmy died from AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). A few years later. Grace’s husband also began to get sick. One day he collapsed and was taken to the hospital. Doctors could not save him. Grace’s husband of eight years died of AIDS-related complications.   Grace now lives alone in a one-room house in the suburbs of Lilongwe. One might expect that at 30 years of age, Grace would be beginning to rebuild her life. She, however, explains: “I have got HIV so I will not get married or have any more children.” HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is understood to be the virus that c