How smart is HIV/AIDS?

Okay... so this is a retrovirus (emphasis on the 'virus'). It is not a living thing unless it has a host. Why are we giving it so much time to evolve? I lived in Africa when I was little, I didn't even know that HIV/AIDS was such an epidemic until I came back.

We fought malaria.
We fought the Bubonic plague
We fought tuberculosis
We are maintaning SARS compared to AIDS.

Have we found our equal? Are we wasting our time giving this disease time to mature? Is HIV/AIDS protecting its own existence? Where is it from anyways? Is it actually man-made (in order to make money by creating a drug for it)? Is this an experiment gone bad?

Why is it so much more prevalent in third world countries. Third world countries I used to think had strict rules on women having sex with someone other than their husband. How is this virus spreading so fast?

In response to SUNBURNFROG(?):

Did you know that when medication as an inhibitor to HIV, and it is stopped, the process of replication is actually increased?

The more we fight, the more we fight back... in that sense?

Actually, many retroviruses are difficult to kill or impossible. The reason is: every time the HIV virus replicates in your cell - its DNA structure changes, making it different from the original virus. It has the ability to alter your cellular DNA structure - when humans can do this more sucessfully or prevent this process - we will have a cure.
I do not understand either why it spreads so fast in Africa, Maybe because the men are polygamists and the women have so many children that are infected. My friend is from the Ivory Coast and has 30 brothers and sisters. It is the men that sleep around and help the spread in third world countries.

Because there is a belief among the 3rd world that if an infected male has sex with a virgin, he will be cured. That is also the reason rape is up so high there.

Wow , Hi

First of all, not everyone who contracts HIV will develop full blown AIDS. As far as the third world countries, has it occurred to you that it isn't the women who are spreading it? I don't know if you have or will have children, but think about this. For all of the advances of medicine there are more and more diseases out there than there ever were before, I believe, and I am no scientist, but for years, we have been getting a different medicine for everything under the bloody sun. Hasn't it occurred to any of the brilliant minds that lead this planet that maybe, just maybe, we should stop screwing around with our bodies, doesn't it stand to reason that the the more we artificially do to help our bodies fight disease the less our body 'actually' has to do and thereby actually weakening our own immune systems by trying to help it? I hope that made sense to someone other than me

Eric J Warren
www.qhealthbeauty.com

I don't think we can say that we've made a lot of progress in Malaria or TB, they still kill large numbers of people around the world.

HIV is creating a lot of new problems, and it has found a niche that will allow it to be a serious public health concern for many years to come. But since we still can't cure the flu, this shouldn't be that much of a surprise.

genetic variation means greater chance of survivability. third'world countries aren't multi-racial unlike europe, canada, or the US. the HIV Rna binds to the T-cells. the T-cells are the cells of our immune system. from the T-cells,they replicate. this means that our immune system, once infected by HIV, will be gone. and T-cells can't scan other T-cells for foreign substances because it is how they work.