AIDS: overview and VA update

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), a devastating disease with numerous masks (e.g., a primary neurosymptomatic disease), has now been reported in over one hundred countries of the world. Projections by the Public Health Service of the numbers of cases and fatal illnesses in the United States by 1991 stagger the imagination, and we are told that these projections may be understated. The Veterans Administration (VA) has not been immune to this disorder, over 2,000 cases of frank AIDS (as defined by the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] having been reported to VA's Central Office by 111 of the VA's 172 medical centers. These findings do not include AIDS-related complex (ARC) or other manifestations of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Seventy-seven percent of this total have been reported from 22 of the VA's largest tertiary care centers. The VA has developed an action plan, one of whose features is the development of a direct discussion and collaboration with other federal health care agencies, including the military. Emphasis is to be placed on the exchange of information among these various executive branches and, most important, on the smooth transfer of patients with AIDS or ARC from the uniformed services into the VA's health care system. In addition to the primary goal of providing timely, compassionate care to these patients, the VA also has a commitment to the dissemination of information to our patients, their families, and our employees.