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AIDS is a medical condition. A person is diagnosed with AIDS when their immune system is too weak to fight off infections. In 1981 the first cases of AIDS were identified among gay men in the US. However, scientists later found evidence that the disease existed in the world as early as 1959. The first documented case of HIV was traced back to 1959 using preserved blood samples, which were analyzed in 1998. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, shortened AIDS, is caused by HIV. HIV affects the cell in such a way, that it begins to die-weakening the immune system. HIV provirus may lie dormant with in a cell for a long time. But when the cell becomes activated, it treats HIV genes in much the same way as human genes. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. Both types are transmitted by sexual contact, through blood, from mother to child and they appear to cause clinically indistinguishable AIDS. HIV-infected patients with weakened immune systems can develop life-threatening infections. The development of cryptosporidiosis, pulmonary and lymph node tuberculosis, wasting, persistent fever (longer than one month), persistent candidasis, recurrent bacterial pneumonia, and other opportunistic infections is common. These patients may be wasting or losing weight.