You know what they say; trading Forex is 80% mental and that only 5% of all currency traders make money consistently. If this is so, and I believe it to be, then we are all in an extremely competitive environment. This means that when we trade, we must always be on our “A” game, our peak performance period.
Here are 3 simple tips to prepare you each day for the competitive playing field that is the Forex market:
1. REST
Before we turn on the computer and look at the currency pairs, it is imperative that we have had adequate rest. Proper sleep allows us to recharge our batteries and extend our period of maximum focus. Sometimes we all wake up and things are just not in balance. Issues outside of our trading environment or our physical conditions, or lack thereof, are ruling the roost. This is when all successful traders pull out their Ultimate Weapon of Successful Currency Trading.
They simple don’t trade!
Use this time to review, read or play golf! It’s all about probabilities, and the probability of success in Forex trading multiplies when we are at our best.
2. PLAN and REVIEW
Currency Trading is a business and should be treated accordingly. In the business of trading currencies we all should have a plan, a business trading plan. This plan should consist of 2 components: A Mission Statement which should explain your personal “Why?” Why are you trading Forex? Your mission statement must be compelling enough to overcome the inevitable challenges all traders face.
The second component is your trading plan. The component of the overall plan covers the execution of Forex trading. Your plan should cover the what, how, when and risk components of your trading. Before each trading session review your entire plan and trade it! Make this a habit. Another trick of successful traders is after losing some focus during the trading period, take a break and before returning refocus by reviewing your plan.
3. RELAX
You must sharpen your mental saw before each and every trading session. There are a variety of methods for helping you relax and focus. You can listen to your favorite music, meditate, recite positive wealth building affirmations or listening to a confidence building CD. When it comes to developing a mental edge, play every ace. The correct method is the one that works for you!
After all of your preparation you still find yourself not on top of your game you can once again consider the ultimate weapon of great traders.
Walk away! You do not have to trade today.
Preparing for your trading session is all about placing yourself is the best position possible to take advantage of the myriad of opportunities that makes the Forex market great. When you incorporate mental preparations into your daily trading ritual you have set the stage for handling whatever the currency market can throw at you with confidence, determination and clarity.
Remember, above all the hype, strategies and methodologies lies common sense. Use it and you too will find success.
Resource Box:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Todd Judkins specializes in teaching real people how to trade the Forex market for long term success by focusing on strategic, mental and money skills. He is a currency trader, educator and success coach to traders. To begin training with Todd immediately, live in the Forex market, and learn this lifetime skill, visit: http://www.forexjourney.com
Forex traders tend to focus on the strategic aspects of their trading and most Forex education organizations are geared to satisfying this specific need. Have a conversation with a currency trader. Over 90% will speak about indicators, candlestick patterns or the latest combination of technical studies that can get you into trade 2-3 candlesticks before anyone else.
Look for the 10% who speak about not being sure where the market is going and how they manage their stops. I got news for you; these are the successful Forex traders!
Yes, Strategy is important, very important; however, it is only one of the three pillars of successful Forex trading. To achieve success all three pillars must be in place and strong. Knowing yourself is the path to ultimate success, but until one conquers self-mastery, profit can truly be found in money management.
Here are 3 simple, but powerful money management tips that will keep your account size growing while your personal and strategic skills develop:
1. Adhere To Your Reward to Risk Ratio
Maintain at a minimum a 2 to 1 reward to risk ratio. That means that the currency pair’s price target should be twice the amount in pips of the stop-loss. If you have a price target that is 60 pips away from your entry and your stop should be 20 pips away from your entry, this means you have a 3 to 1 reward to risk ratio.
Congratulations, you cleared the first hurdle, but this still does not represent a good trade for money management.
2. Use Stops
Always use a stop-loss! Write this one in stone. I see novice currency traders make 2 huge money management errors with stop-losses;
a.. They simple do not use one.
b. The use a set amount of pips for a stop loss.
Set your stop loss based off of your chart technicals. You must give your trade room to work or it is doomed to stop you out. Establishing your price target and chart stops will allow you to evaluate the reward to risk ratio. Do not use a set 20 or 30 pips stop loss. Let the chart tell you where the stop should be and let step 3 be the final judge!
3. Manage Your Overall Account Risk
Most every expert recommends establishing a 1-5% risk profile. So at any given time you will never risk more than 1-5% of your account that is not already in a trade. That’s right. Not your total account, the portion that is not already leveraged in a trade.
The goal here is to continue to play the Forex game. In order to do this the currency trader must understand the amount of maximum loss prior to ever getting into a trade.
Now a determination can be made on whether a trade is affordable. The trade could have all the technical stars aligned, exceptional reward to risk ratio, but if the risk profile is violated it is ultimately a bad trade. Losing trades are part of doing business in the Forex market; however, bad trades are the quickest way to back to that 9 to 5!
Strong money management techniques are one of the 3 pillars of successful Forex trading (strategy and self-mastery are the others). It is money management that allows the Forex trader to manage their trading business like a casino and give power to their trading edge.
It is better to have a poor trading strategy with solid money management than vice versa. Mastering your money will allow you to stay in the game and compound your account into profit. Again, don’t get caught up in all the hype. Common sense rules the roost! Use these tips and you too will find success in the Forex market.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Todd Judkins specializes in teaching real people how to trade the Forex market for long term success by focusing on strategic, mind and money skills. He is a currency trader, educator and success coach to traders. Are you now ready to take action? To begin training with Todd immediately, online Forex trading visit: http://www.forexjourney.com and sign up for his FREE Video Newsletter.
Close to 95% of all Forex traders will lose money. We're not just talking about novices, either. Whether you trade Forex for a living, as a hobby or just for fun, odds are against your success. That's a simply astonishing fact. However, the remaining 5% of Forex traders somehow manage to break even and there are those lucky few that actually make money in the currency market – consistently!
Like the TV show says … “How’d they do that, anyway?”
That's the million dollar questions, isn’t it? Countless books, seminars and expos have been hosted to answer this very question. That sad fact is that thousands of books have been written and countless seminars and interviews have been conducted in an attempt to answer the magic questions. The reality of the situation is that there is no magic formula; no one single Holy Grail of Forex trading.
So what do the successful traders do that the rest of us have simple not comprehended. They have mastered a process of winning where they combine and customize several factor to produce consistent results. They have mastered the Process of Trading.
The Process of Trading is:
Strategy > Money Management > Self-Mastery
Here are some simple Forex Education tips to help you master the process of forex trading:
Forex Success Tip #1 – You’ve Got To Have a Plan
You must have a written business plan that will detail all aspects of your trading. When are you going to trade, how much to risk, strategies for entries and exits are just o name a few. To become a consistent (profitable) Forex trader you have to plan your trade sand trade your plan.
Simplicity rules! Don’t make this plan too complicated. One sheet of paper for you mission statement and another for your trading plan should suffice. Anything more is probably too complicated.
Forex Success Tip #2 – Focus on Your Personal Psychology
Knowing yourself will allow you to master the discipline necessary to execute high quality trades with solid money management techniques. Lack of discipline is fatal in Forex trading. Go on a personal journey to identify you attitudes towards risk and money. Get intimate with your strengths and weaknesses as a trader and build in to your trading plan strategies to minimize those weaknesses and maximize your strengths.
Different personalities lend to different trading styles. Get familiar with all the different styles and over time you will begin to gravitate towards one particular style. Don’t fight the urge like I did. I insisted I was a day trader, but had only limited results. I found my winning percentages were much higher when I entered swing trades. Guess what’s my bread and butter strategy now!
Forex Success Tip #3 – Be Realistic About Your Expectations
This is a hard one, I know! I am on the internet every day and the amount of advertising is staggering. Brokers are offering free education (fox in the hen house if you ask me), forums of all different trading styles and points of view. Gurus pushing their system as “the one” that will make you the big bucks. How do you get through all that noise?
Let me tell you loud and clear right now – everyone is right and everyone is wrong. You have to make a personal commitment to become a successful trader, find a trading style that works for you and expect a slow and steady approach to wealth building through Forex.
What works for me may not work for you. Expect to go through an exploratory period where you are learning and at the same time exploring yourself as a trader. Keep an open mind and don’t pay attention to all the noise out there.
Forex Success Tip #4 – Be Patient
Rome was not built in a day and neither will your trading account. In fact, I tell all of my students that while they are studying to become successful Forex traders they should not look solely at their account balance as an indication of success or failure.
By tracking and increasing your percentage of high quality trades you execute is a far better barometer of your progress than your account balance. Cause and effect rule here. Over time when you increase your probabilities through the execution of high quality trades your account balance will respond accordingly.
Keep the focus on the process and with time your results will blow your mind.
Success Tip #5 - Money Management Is Top Priority
I would rather have a shaky strategy and excellent money management techniques than the other way around. This topic warrants its own blog post to do it justice. Limited your exposure (read “risk”) allows for you to stay in the game and allow the laws of probability to work.
Let’s take a casino for an example. They need gamblers to frequent their slot machines to make money. Why? They have a game that has a greater than 50% chance of making money for the house. The more people that play the slots, the greater the casino’s profits.
The casino controls risk by payout tables (always favoring the house!) and increases their probabilities by keeping gamblers at the slot machines (read “free drinks”). As a trader you must limit your risk by committing only 1% - 3% of available capital to a single trade. When you execute enough trades with a high probability strategy you too can clean up like the casinos – but only by staying in the game long term.
In conclusion, Forex trading is not easy. It’s hard work and will test the limits of your patience and perseverance. If anyone tells you otherwise .., buyers beware! It can be a very rewarding and profitable venture if done correctly. In the end it is a profession that requires a learning curve and practical experience, no different than an airline pilot or engineer. Understanding how to approach and learn this game will allow you to reap all the benefits advertised. It is your Forex Education that you will master the Process of Forex Trading.
Yes, learning Forex trading is key, but can anyone really make a business out of trading the Forex market? Or, shall we say, can one make enough of a profit to make a living trading the Forex market? Many would not attempt to answer that question, and realistically, there is no real easy answer. Some people do, in fact, make a living as traders, not only in Forex, but in the stock market, futures market, or other types of investment instrument markets. However, it’s important to understand that making a profit in the Forex market, or any other kind of liquid financial market, takes time and effort. It’s not something that you can suddenly make a decision to do and expect to become successful without Forex education, mentoring and most important your personal desire, dedication and perseverance.
Making a profit in Forex trading requires knowledge of which economic and geo-political news events moves a currency pair and its seasonal fluctuations. You need to know what affects the spot price and how to adjust your trades accordingly. In other words, you need to understand the fundamentals, as well as the technicals.
In order to learn the important things about the Forex market, you need to have experience; it is not something you can learn from simply reading a Forex dummies book, surf currency trading sites on the web and following the global currency trends. The key to making a profit trading the Forex market or any trading in any other market for that matter, is knowing when and how to trade, and equally important, when not to trade, and that comes not from reading the newspapers or a book but from gaining the experience. Trading with a mentor can accelerate the process.
If you are limited on the amount of funds in your Forex trading account, you might want to consider utilizing a mini account or super mini account and compound that account to profit. The Forex Journey trading process, once learned, will have typical deviations built into the methodology. Adjusting to the nuances of currency trading will become inherent and you will learn to process a $5,000 account applying the same principals as you would manage a $500,000 account. The power is truly in the Forex trading process.
Choosing currency pairs that are less volatile (read more liquid) gives you a better chance of making a profit during your early trading transactions. The experience will allow you to gain insight into how the Forex market works and teach you the best way to conduct Forex trading business. Once you gain the experience that you need, you are in a better position to consider some of the more volatile currency pairs since you will be better educated with the knowledge of how certain events affect the price of most currencies.
The most important thing is to remember that not to rush into anything. Do all of your research first so that you will make the right choices in your swing trading activities. Choose a Forex education course and mentor that specializes in swing trading. In the end, you are only in competition with yourself, so there is no need to think you need to make a decision right away on any currency pairs you need to trade. Your goal should be first getting comfortable with the strategic concepts. Second, master money management techniques and finally, learn to trade from your personality.
Happy Trading!!
Trading the Forex market I have found to be a great analogy of life. We trade as we live, with our strengths and weaknesses. Our feeling about ourselves, our cultural views on money and abundance, and especially our perception of wealth creep into every aspect of our trading. This is the reason I place such a heavy emphasis on personal self-mastery. Becoming aware of whom we are as an individual, our strengths and weaknesses, and our perspective on life will determine how well we can deploy the correct principals of strategy and risk management and remove the mask of mental poverty in our trading.
Self-mastery is taught within the context of Forex trading, but in reality it is all about identifying who we are as a person. What drives us and what holds us back. Each aspect can help or hinder us from becoming successful traders. Identifying our personal traits is so critical to our trading that it should be brought from the back pages (usually under the last chapters of “trading psychology”) to the first page of our Forex education curriculum.
Mastery of yourself not only will lead to success in the Forex market, but also success in whatever venture one decides to pursue. Forex Journey is my journey and from personal experience I have found that to experience success trading this market you will come to know yourself. This is the primary reason why we teach life and mind skills to our gold and platinum members at Forex Journey. The 90% that don’t succeed fail because they did not acknowledge who they are as a person, which determines who they are as a trader.
Trading currency is hard, but not because of complex strategies or risk management models. Forex is hard because the market is comprised of living, breathing emotional beings that can think and act both independently and as a group. It’s the human element that makes the market what it is. Know the psychology of the market through fundamentals is mandatory, but what most people ignore is that they themselves are the other half of the equation.
It all starts with becoming aware of who you are as a person to fully understand the strength and weakness you will bring to the table as a trader. Becoming aware will lead to an understanding which in turn will lead to overcoming.
Success in the Forex market cannot be borrowed or outsourced. It must be earned piece by piece and the first piece is starts with you.
Happy Trading!!
FOREX Trading
The Most Lucrative Part-time Job or Home Based Business Ever
The Forex market is relatively new when compared to the traditional
stock market. The Forex or Foreign Exchange Currency Market was open to the public in 1998. In a year it will be a decade old. This is one
of the major reasons most people do not know about the Forex.
The first reason why you should take a closer look at the
opportunities in the forex market is because of its liquidity
estimated at $2 trillion daily. The other reason is that it is
traded 24 hours of the day and 6 days in a week and participation is
open to all, from individuals like you and me to very large financial
institutions.
With the economic situation of our day worldwide, where there are no
more job guarantees it is not unusual to wake up one morning and find
oneself jobless. In such times, there is an increasing need for a lucrative part-time job or home based business. This is something that you can had absolute control over.
There are of course a multitude of money making opportunities out
there, but to be factual, it is very difficult to find a real
opportunity which will allow you to make a living from your home
computer. Even when you do, you would have to spend hours
doing market research and invest large sums of money to bring it to
fruition. That is if you have not gotten involved in a scam project.
Most of the opportunities on the web today, even if you make big
profits, may be held by someone else. In other words, when you
participate in those turnkey businesses, you do not have control.
In addition to all the "fire your boss today" opportunities, there is
a program on CNBC called Mad Money that seems to begetting to the
masses and unknowing students to invest in the stock market. In
reality this is a very expensive experiment especially for student
that do not have a lot of capital. Buying a Goggle stock for $400.00
a piece is very expensive given that your capital can be wiped out if
the stock goes against you by 100 points. That money could be better
invested in the Forex positions (trades).
The forex market which is also called FX is not really as difficult
as it seems. There is not that much technical vocabulary to learn,
and the risk is considerably low, if you compare it to the other
markets. If we assume that you have 40% loosing trades, you still
have 10 trades left to bring you profit.
The fact that part time job and home businesses seekers should really
consider is that you can choose when to trade, how much to trade and
where you want to trade; all you need is an Internet connection, and
you are ready to tap in the biggest market of the world with $ 2
trillion activity everyday in the same way banks and large corporation do.
Contrary to the trading of stocks, you do not have to start with a
$1000.00 capital. You can start with as little as $250.00.
When you trade a mini lot (10,000 units) of e.g. GBPUSD currency pair
your entry ticket costs $28.00. So when the pair goes your way 1
point, you are $1.00 in profit and vice versa.
You can also trade lesser trading units and you can trade for as
little as $1.00. It is therefore possible to turn a $28.00 investment
to a profit of $100.00 in 24 hours if the currency moves in your
direction 103 points. Imagine been able to do this 2 times a week. In
a good week, this pair moves an average of 400 points.
The Forex market is not a get rich quick scheme it is easy to learn
and understand. It is also easy to make money in the forex if you let
someone dedicated to your success teach you.
Mercedes made more money with FOREX trading than with car manufacturing this year. It is a good way to make $100(0) a day.
Trade without money for 3-6 months on paper, than when you learn
start trading real money. Dont be greedy. 10-20 pips a day is enough.
Start with $250 and build it up to thousands slowly. When you
become a successful trader, you can live anywhere on the planet,
and never have to be dependent on a JOB (Just Over Broke).
1.
Download Metatrader 4 from:
http://www.interbankfx.com/
WHEN YOU FOLLOW THE RULES, YOU WILL MAKE MONEY !
YOU CAN QUIT YOUR JOB NEXT YEAR ...
90 % OF NEWCOMERS FAIL BECAUSE OF GREED, SAME AS IN LAS VEGAS ...
Read and study the whole thread.
20 pips = $20 a day
20 pips = $200 a day
20 pips = $2000 a day
George Soros from Hungary come to this country and made billions on Forex. In one single day he made 1 billion ... really the sky is the limit ...
2.
Here is the thread:
http://fxovereasy.50webs.com/Home.html
Let me known your results. This is my gift for you all.
Some traders searched for years unsuccessfully for this gift.
You can learn this on your own in few days.
I am artist and a philosopher with no talent for numbers. But you
dont need any talent for this, just follow the rules.
Dalibor
http://www.myspace.com/dalibor777
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here is the detailed description of how to install this system
in to your Metatrader:
First down load Metatrader 4 or Strategybuilder FX MT4 (there is a downloads link at the top of the page on this forum. My understanding is that the Metatrader 4 and Strategybuilderfx 4 are the identical. Once it is downloaded then double click to open it and make sure it is operational...then close it down.
Now go to http://fxovereasy.50webs.com/Home.html click on "Indicator downloads" which will open up the list of indicators.
If you left click on the top one (SHI Channels) you will probably get text. So right click on it and you'll get a drop down window...click on "Save target as..." (I found that sometimes when I did the right click first I would not get the window that contained "Save target as" so I found that I had to left click first...then click back and then right click), now you will see a "Save as" window.
In the "Save in" window at the top you want it to read "Local Disk (C). Here is how you can get it to say that without typing it in... click on the arrow at the right side of the upper box. You will now see a drop down window...in it you will see "Local Disk (C)". Click or double click on it and it should then open up it the "Save In" box at the top. Now in the contents below you will see "Program Files". Click or double on it and "Program Files will now be in the "Save in" box (Ifound that if I clicked on the little file folder to the left of the text, it opened easier). Below you'll find "Strategybuilderfx 4 or Metrader 4". Click or double click on it and "Strategybuilderfx4 or Metatrador 4 will now be in the "Save in" box above with it's contents showing below. Find "experts" below, click or double click on it and "experts with appear in the "Save in" box above. Now you will find "indicators", on which you will click or double click and "indicators" will now appear in the "Save in" box above with nothing in the large area below.
Down at the bottom right corner click on "Save"...now you are finished downloading that indicator.
Now go back to the ForexOvereasy indicator download page and download the next indicator. You should find that when you click on "Save target as" it will take you directly to the last step, with "Indicators" already in the "Save in" box, so all you have to do is click on "Save" and its finished and you're ready to download the next indicator. Don't forget to go back to the home page and download the "New Stuff".
Now that your indicators are all downloaded, go ahead and open your "Strategybuilderfx4/ Metratrader 4.
On the left side under "Navigator" click on the + next to "Custom Indicators" which should open up and show you lots of indicators which include the ones you just downloaded. Right click on an indicator and then click on "Attach to chart". Do the same with all the indicators that you want to add...and you should be ready to go.
You can switch the chart over to candlestick by clicking on the candlestick indicator at the top just to the right of center. I suggest you do this first.
I find this tradestation a little difficult to use but that may be because I'm not used to it. It has lots of features.
If you find that you want to delete an indicator, just right click on it and click on the "Delete indicator" line. (Some of the charts may already have some indicators installed that you may not want.)
I have some charts where the candles are very close together and some that are just right...and I haven't figured out the remedy.
Here is the chat thread, but dont complicate a great system, which cant be automated:
http://www.strategybuilderfx.com/showthread.php?t=15112
On this one page you have it all. If you follow the rules, and control your greed, you will become independently wealthy with this system. You are extremely blessed to read this page, as millions of new traders gave up from a lack of a good system. Many professional trader millionaires said, that this is the best system and if you cant work with this system, FOREX is not for you!
See this chart how I made 50 pips (it could be $50 at start, $500 or $5000 every day) :
http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/4428/usdchfii1.jpg
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I see most people trying to make a system that should generate 1000 pips or 2000 pips per month, and try to enter every possible move. But the fact is, if you want to make $18 million in 5 years, all you need is discipline and 100 pips per month. Don't believe me? Read on....
Assuming that there are 20 trading days a month, 100 pips would be an average of 5 pips per day. It doesnt matter if you do day trading or positional, if you do 1 trade or 100 trades, all you need is a system that can consistently make 100 pips for you every month.
RULES:
1) You need a system that can make 100 pips consistently every month per lot.
2) Opening balance would be $500
3) Trade is done only in mini lots
4) 0.1 lot is allowed for every $500 balance. So if you have $1000 you can trade 0.2 lots and if you have $5000 you can trade 1.0 lots and so on.
5) Emotions like greed, fear and hope have to be barred out.
6) Once you made 100 pips in a particular month, you do not have to trade till the month is over. So if you make 100 pips in 2 days, you can quit for the entire month.
RESULTS:
After 12 months you will have $3,100
After 24 months you will have $26,000
After 36 months you will have $230,100
After 48 months you will have $2,050,300
After 60 months you will have $18,278,700
Suprised ?
So maybe you'd say no system can make 100 pips consistenly per month. OK, lets say if you were right. Would you agree with me that its comparatively easier to make 10 pips per month? Even if you target 10 pips per month, you would yet end up with $1.8m in 5 years using the same methodology.
Trading is like painting a canvas, you should step back and try to look at the bigger picture than a trade or a single day alone. It is so true.
So get rid of your greed and trade with nothing but common sense. Plz see the attachment for the break up of gains per month.
http://www.traderology.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=3
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God bless you all and I wish you a happy new lifestyle ...
The mobile phone or cell phone is a long-range, portable electronic device used for mobile communication. In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, current mobile phones can support many additional services such as SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching for access to the Internet, and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video. Most current mobile phones connect to a cellular network of base stations (cell sites), which is in turn interconnected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) (the exception is satellite phones).
here is one U.S. patent, Patent Number 887357 for a wireless telephone, issued 1908 to Nathan B. Stubblefield of Murray, Kentucky. He applied this to "cave radio" telephones and not directly to cellular telephony as we know it today.[1] However, the introduction of cells for mobile phone base stations, invented in 1947 by Bell Labs engineers at AT&T, was further developed by Bell Labs during the 1960s. Radiophones have a long and varied history going back to Reginald Fessenden's invention and shore-to-ship demonstration of radio telephony, through the Second World War with military use of radio telephony links and civil services in the 1950s, while hand-held cellular radio devices have been available since 1983. Due to their low establishment costs and rapid deployment, mobile phone networks have since spread rapidly throughout the world, outstripping the growth of fixed telephony.[citation needed]
In 1945, the zero generation (0G) of mobile telephones was introduced. 0G mobile telephones, such as Mobile Telephone Service, were not officially categorized as mobile phones, since they did not support the automatic change of channel frequency during calls, which allows the user to move from one cell (the base station coverage area) to another cell, a feature called "handover".[citation needed]
In 1984, Bell Labs invented such a "call handoff" feature, which allowed mobile-phone users to travel through several cells during the same conversation. Motorola is widely considered to be the inventor of the first practical mobile phone for handheld use in a non-vehicle setting. Using a modern, if somewhat heavy portable handset, Motorola manager Martin Cooper made the first call on a handheld mobile phone on April 3, 1973.[2]
The first commercial cellular network was launched in Japan by NTT in 1979. Fully automatic cellular networks were first introduced in the early to mid 1980s (the 1G generation) with the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system in 1981. This was followed by a boom in mobile telephone usage, particularly in Northern Europe.[citation needed]
The first "modern" network technology on digital 2G (second generation) cellular technology was launched by Radiolinja (now part of Elisa Group) in 1991 in Finland on the GSM standard which also marked the introduction of competition in mobile telecoms when Radiolinja challenged incumbent Telecom Finland (now part of TeliaSonera) who ran a 1G NMT network. A decade later, the first commercial launch of 3G (Third Generation) was again in Japan by NTT DoCoMo on the WCDMA standard.[citation needed] Until the early 1990s, most mobile phones were too large to be carried in a jacket pocket, so they were typically installed in vehicles as car phones. With the miniaturization of digital components, mobile phones have become increasingly handy over the years.
Today, video and TV services are driving forward third generation (3G) deployment. And in the future, low cost, high speed data will driveforward the fourth generation (4G) as short-range communication emerges.Service and application ubiquity, with a high degree of personalization and synchronization between various user appliances,will be another driver. At the same time, it is probable that the radio access network will evolve from a centralized architecture to a distributed one.
Manufacturers
Nokia Corporation is currently the world's largest manufacturer of mobile telephones, with a global device market share of approximately 36% in Q1 of 2007.[3] Other mobile phone manufacturers include Apple Inc., Audiovox (now UT Starcom), Benefon, BenQ-Siemens, High Tech Computer Corporation (HTC), Fujitsu, Kyocera, LG Mobile, Mitsubishi, Motorola, NEC, Neonode, Panasonic (Matsushita Electric), Pantech Curitel, Philips, Research In Motion, Sagem, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Siemens, Sierra Wireless, SK Teletech, Sonim Technologies, Sony Ericsson, T&A Alcatel,Toshiba, and Verizon. There are also specialist communication systems related to (but distinct from) mobile phones.
The mobile phone manufacturers can be grouped into two. The top five are available in practically all countries and comprise about 75% of all phones sold. A second tier of small manufacturers exists with phones mostly sold only in specific regions or for niche markets. The top five in order of market share are Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, SonyEricsson and LG.
Several countries, including the UK, now have more mobile phones than people.[4] There are over five hundred million active mobile phone accounts in China, as of 2007.[5] Luxembourg has the highest mobile phone penetration rate in the world, at 164% in December 2001. In Hong Kong the penetration rate reached 139.8% of the population in July 2007.[6] The total number of mobile phone subscribers in the world was estimated at 2.14 billion in 2005.[7] The subscriber count reached 2.7 billion by end of 2006 according to Informa[citation needed], and 3.3 billion by November, 2007[8], thus reaching an equivalent of over half the planet's population. Around 80% of the world's population enjoys mobile phone coverage as of 2006. This figure is expected to increase to 90% by the year 2010.[9]
At present, Africa has the largest growth rate of cellular subscribers in the world,[10] its markets expanding nearly twice as fast as Asian markets.[11] The availability of prepaid or 'pay-as-you-go' services, where the subscriber is not committed to a long term contract, has helped fuel this growth to a monumental scale in Africa as well as in other continents.
On a numerical basis, India is the largest growth market, adding about 6 million cell phones every month.[12] With 156.31 million cell phones, market penetration in the country is still low at 17.45% India expects to reach 500 million subscribers by end of 2010.
There are three major technical standards for the current generation of mobile phones and networks, and two major standards for the next generation 3G phones and networks. All European, African and many Asian countries have adopted a single system, GSM, which is the only technology available on all continents and in most countries and covers over 74% of all subscribers on mobile networks. In many countries, such as the United States, Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, and South Korea GSM co-exists with other internationally adopted standards such as CDMA and TDMA, as well as national standards such as iDEN in the USA and PDC in Japan. Over the past five years several dozen mobile operators (carriers) have abandoned networks on TDMA and CDMA technologies, switching over to GSM.
With third generation (3G) networks, which are also known as IMT-2000 networks, about three out of four networks are on the W-CDMA (also known as UMTS) standard, usually seen as the natural evolution path for GSM and TDMA networks. One in four 3G networks is on the CDMA2000 1x EV-DO technology. Some analysts count a previous stage in CDMA evolution, CDMA2000 1x RTT, as a 3G technology whereas most standardization experts count only CDMA2000 1x EV-DO as a true 3G technology. Because of this difference in interpreting what is 3G, there is a wide variety in subscriber counts. As of June 2007, on the narrow definition there are 200 million subscribers on 3G networks. By using the more broad definition, the total subscriber count of 3G phone users is 475 million.
While some systems of payment are 'pay-as-you-go' where conversation time is purchased and added to a phone unit via an Internet account or in shops or ATMs, other systems are more traditional ones where bills are paid by regular intervals. Pay as you go (also known as "pre-pay") accounts were invented simultaneously in Portugal and Italy and today form more than half of all mobile phone subscriptions. USA, Canada, Japan and Finland are among the rare countries left where most phones are still contract-based.
Culture and customs
In less than twenty years, the mobile telephone has gone from being rare, expensive equipment of the business elite to a pervasive, low-cost personal item. In many countries, mobile telephones outnumber land-line telephones; in the U.S., 50 percent of children have mobile telephones.[13] In many young adults' households it has supplanted the land-line telephone. The mobile phone is banned in some countries, such as North Korea.[14]
Given the high levels of societal mobile telephone service penetration, it is a key means for people to communicate with each other. The SMS feature spawned the "texting" sub-culture.[citation needed] In December 1993, the first person-to-person SMS text message was transmitted in Finland. Currently, texting is the most widely-used data service; 1.8 billion users generated $80 billion of revenue in 2006 (source ITU).
Many telephones offer Instant Messenger services for simple, easy texting. Mobile phones have Internet service (e.g. NTT DoCoMo's i-mode), offering text messaging via e-mail in Japan, South Korea, China, and India. In Europe, 30–40 per cent of internet access is via mobile telephone. Most mobile internet access is much different from computer access, featuring alerts, weather data, e-mail, search engines, instant messages, and game and music downloading; most mobile internet access is hurried and short.
Currently, the mobile telephone is a fashion totem custom-decorated to reflect the owner's personality. This aspect of the mobile telephony business is, in itself, an industry, e.g. ringtone sales exceeded $5 billion in 2006, per Informa.
Yes, I too spoke into a plastic watch strapped to my wrist, pretending to be Action Man and James Bond, thwarting the evil world domination plans of my six-year old brother. I was a kid of course, but there is something inherently spy-like and cool about being able to communicate via your wrist. Stick that in your iPhone.
We have covered the M300 Watch Phone in the past but the fantasy is set to be come a reality next month. Australian makers, SMS Technology, showed it off at the 3GSM show this week and announced that first shipments will start in March to South Africa. It added:
“We are currently finalizing agreements in Australia, UK, Denmark, Russia, Canada, Spain, Italy, USA and South America and will announce the release dates in due course over the coming week.”
It will come over 80 hours standby time, full SMS functionality, Bluetooth, dial-up networking, games, MP3 player, 64 MB of internal memory, USB connectivity, 99-number memory storage and 40 embedded real tones. It will cost around [currency conversion warning!] £300.
Full specs and another pic after the jump.-Martin Lynch
The M300 Watch Phone
Main chipset: MTK
Memory: 64MB
Features:
Voice Bluetooth
MP3 Player
Internal antenna
USB Port for connection to Personal computer
40 embedded true tones
Emergency Call Button
Fully Functional 99 number memory Phonebook
GSM SIM Card
External Speaker Phone
Fully Functional SMS capabilities
Wireless Bluetooth Data Transfer
Bluetooth Dial Up Networking (DUN)
Talktime: 200 min
Standby: 80 Hours
Mode: GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz Tri mode (HW)
GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz Tri mode (SW)
Dimensions: 43 x 56 x 14.8 mm (with 500mA Battery)
Weight: 45g
Phone Color: Pastel Blue & Pink, Baby Blue & Pink, Navy Blue,
Electric Blue, Red, Yellow, Black and Grey
Display: Color OLED Screen 1.01 inches
Travel Adaptor (USB Internal charging type) Wireless USB Charger
Coming FDI in real estate India from every corner of the world or showing interest of world's realty tycoons or entry of big corporate houses like Reliance, Tata developing SEZ's or joint ventures with foreign companies like EMMAR-MGF. Showing facts of real estate India for safe and secure high return investment, best result of Indian real estates attracts investors world wide.
With the pace of time the Indian real estate market is emerging as one of the most lucrative options for investment in the world real estate sector. Investing in real estate India is safer than other countries, as Indian economy is growing at a very fast rate and survey shows that real estate India shall maintain its steady growth in future. While international developers and builders have registered their strong presence in Indian real estate market, more than dozen Indian companies have diversified their portfolios and entered into the field of real estate thus giving tremendous boost to the Indian Properties.
How did we find reliable real estate companies?
We have found our partners with experience – feedbacks from your posts in our forums and emails.
We have run an active community forum for more than 2 years and so far we have read numerous posts - suggestions and experiences about real estate companies from our valued members. This was the first method in choosing the right real estate companies for you. We also applied extensive research about them and aswell as speaking with local solicitors, and now we are sure that we have found the right ones wisely.
How reliable? Because you're protected legally.
For your own safety, you should insist on consulting with a solicitor. Please read the Turkish Embassy – London’s page (http://www.turkisheconomy.org.uk/index.html ).
Please note that solicitors are privileged professionals to gather any information on
* Property official records at TAPU offices,
* Company registration records at Chambers of Commerce
* Financial viability of a company
* How to find out who owns a property
* Whether a property had been built properly and all relevant licenses had been gathered
Furthermore, you may not need a translator if you are using a good English-speaking solicitor.
Using the same procedure we explained above, we chose our solicitor with members' recommendations in our forums.
Unlike others, we have a public open forum that you can always ask questions on, whether it’s about our services or other matters that you would like to learn about. You are also free to read information from our forum which has more than 85.000 posts and 4.500 members.
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HIV and AIDS retard economic growth by destroying human capital. UNAIDS has predicted outcomes for sub-Saharan Africa to the year 2025. These range from a plateau and eventual decline in deaths beginning around 2012 to a catastrophic continual growth in the death rate with potentially 90 million cases of infection.
Without proper nutrition, health care and medicine that is available in developed countries, large numbers of people in these countries are falling victim to AIDS. They will not only be unable to work, but will also require significant medical care. The forecast is that this will likely cause a collapse of economies and societies in the region. In some heavily infected areas, the epidemic has left behind many orphans cared for by elderly grandparents.
The increased mortality in this region will result in a smaller skilled population and labor force. This smaller labor force will be predominantly young people, with reduced knowledge and work experience leading to reduced productivity. An increase in workers’ time off to look after sick family members or for sick leave will also lower productivity. Increased mortality will also weaken the mechanisms that generate human capital and investment in people, through loss of income and the death of parents. By killing off mainly young adults, AIDS seriously weakens the taxable population, reducing the resources available for public expenditures such as education and health services not related to AIDS resulting in increasing pressure for the state's finances and slower growth of the economy. This results in a slower growth of the tax base, an effect that will be reinforced if there are growing expenditures on treating the sick, training (to replace sick workers), sick pay and caring for AIDS orphans. This is especially true if the sharp increase in adult mortality shifts the responsibility and blame from the family to the government in caring for these orphans.
On the level of the household, AIDS results in both the loss of income and increased spending on healthcare by the household. The income effects of this lead to spending reduction as well as a substitution effect away from education and towards healthcare and funeral spending. A study in Côte d'Ivoire showed that households with an HIV/AIDS patient spent twice as much on medical expenses as other households.
UNAIDS, WHO and the United Nations Development Programme have documented a correlation between the decreasing life expectancies and the lowering of gross national product in many African countries with prevalence rates of 10% or more. Indeed, since 1992 predictions that AIDS would slow economic growth in these countries have been published. The degree of impact depended on assumptions about the extent to which illness would be funded by savings and who would be infected. Conclusions reached from models of the growth trajectories of 30 sub-Saharan economies over the period 1990–2025 were that the economic growth rates of these countries would be between 0.56 and 1.47% lower. The impact on gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was less conclusive. However, in 2000, the rate of growth of Africa's per capita GDP was in fact reduced by 0.7% per year from 1990–1997 with a further 0.3% per year lower in countries also affected by malaria. The forecast now is that the growth of GDP for these countries will undergo a further reduction of between 0.5 and 2.6% per annum. However, these estimates may be an underestimate, as they do not look at the effects on output per capita.
Many governments in sub-Saharan Africa denied that there was a problem for years, and are only now starting to work towards solutions. Underfunding is a problem in all areas of HIV prevention when compared to even conservative estimates of the problems.
The launching of the world's first official HIV/AIDS Toolkit in Zimbabwe on October 3, 2006 is a product of collaborative work between the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, World Health Organization and the Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service. It is for the strengthening of people living with HIV/AIDS and nurses by minimal external support. The package, which is in form of eight modules focusing on basic facts about HIV and AIDS, was pre-tested in Zimbabwe in March 2006 to determine its adaptability. It disposes, among other things, categorized guidelines on clinical management, education and counseling of AIDS victims at community level.
The Copenhagen Consensus is a project that seeks to establish priorities for advancing global welfare using methodologies based on the theory of welfare economics. The participants are all economists, with the focus of the project being a rational prioritization based on economic analysis. The project is based on the contention that, in spite of the billions of dollars spent on global challenges by the United Nations, the governments of wealthy nations, foundations, charities, and non-governmental organizations, the money spent on problems such as malnutrition and climate change is not sufficient to meet many internationally-agreed targets. The highest priority was assigned to implementing new measures to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS. The economists estimated that an investment of $27 billion could avert nearly 30 million new infections by 2010.
Many HIV-positive people are unaware that they are infected with the virus. For example, less than 1% of the sexually active urban population in Africa have been tested and this proportion is even lower in rural populations. Furthermore, only 0.5% of pregnant women attending urban health facilities are counselled, tested or receive their test results. Again, this proportion is even lower in rural health facilities. Since donors may therefore be unaware of their infection, donor blood and blood products used in medicine and medical research are routinely screened for HIV.
HIV-1 testing consists of initial screening with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect antibodies to HIV-1. Specimens with a nonreactive result from the initial ELISA are considered HIV-negative unless new exposure to an infected partner or partner of unknown HIV status has occurred. Specimens with a reactive ELISA result are retested in duplicate. If the result of either duplicate test is reactive, the specimen is reported as repeatedly reactive and undergoes confirmatory testing with a more specific supplemental test (e.g., Western blot or, less commonly, an immunofluorescence assay (IFA)). Only specimens that are repeatedly reactive by ELISA and positive by IFA or reactive by Western blot are considered HIV-positive and indicative of HIV infection. Specimens that are repeatedly ELISA-reactive occasionally provide an indeterminate Western blot result, which may be either an incomplete antibody response to HIV in an infected person, or nonspecific reactions in an uninfected person. Although IFA can be used to confirm infection in these ambiguous cases, this assay is not widely used. Generally, a second specimen should be collected more than a month later and retested for persons with indeterminate Western blot results. Although much less commonly available, nucleic acid testing (e.g., viral RNA or proviral DNA amplification method) can also help diagnosis in certain situations. In addition, a few tested specimens might provide inconclusive results because of a low quantity specimen. In these situations, a second specimen is collected and tested for HIV
Symptoms and complications :
The symptoms of AIDS are primarily the result of conditions that do not normally develop in individuals with healthy immune systems. Most of these conditions are infections caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites that are normally controlled by the elements of the immune system that HIV damages. Opportunistic infections are common in people with AIDS. HIV affects nearly every organ system. People with AIDS also have an increased risk of developing various cancers such as Kaposi's sarcoma, cervical cancer and cancers of the immune system known as lymphomas.
Additionally, people with AIDS often have systemic symptoms of infection like fevers, sweats (particularly at night), swollen glands, chills, weakness, and weight loss. After the diagnosis of AIDS is made, the current average survival time with antiretroviral therapy (as of 2005) is estimated to be more than 5 years, but because new treatments continue to be developed and because HIV continues to evolve resistance to treatments, estimates of survival time are likely to continue to change. Without antiretroviral therapy, death normally occurs within a year. Most patients die from opportunistic infections or malignancies associated with the progressive failure of the immune system.
The rate of clinical disease progression varies widely between individuals and has been shown to be affected by many factors such as host susceptibility and immune function health care and co-infections, as well as factors relating to the viral strain. The specific opportunistic infections that AIDS patients develop depend in part on the prevalence of these infections in the geographic area in which the patient lives.
Major pulmonary illnesses:
Pneumocystis pneumonia (originally known as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, and still abbreviated as PCP, which now stands for Pneumocystis pneumonia) is relatively rare in healthy, immunocompetent people, but common among HIV-infected individuals. It is caused by Pneumocystis jirovecii. Before the advent of effective diagnosis, treatment and routine prophylaxis in Western countries, it was a common immediate cause of death. In developing countries, it is still one of the first indications of AIDS in untested individuals, although it does not generally occur unless the CD4 count is less than 200 per µL.
Tuberculosis (TB) is unique among infections associated with HIV because it is transmissible to immunocompetent people via the respiratory route, is easily treatable once identified, may occur in early-stage HIV disease, and is preventable with drug therapy. However, multidrug resistance is a potentially serious problem. Even though its incidence has declined because of the use of directly observed therapy and other improved practices in Western countries, this is not the case in developing countries where HIV is most prevalent. In early-stage HIV infection (CD4 count >300 cells per µL), TB typically presents as a pulmonary disease. In advanced HIV infection, TB often presents atypically with extrapulmonary (systemic) disease a common feature. Symptoms are usually constitutional and are not localized to one particular site, often affecting bone marrow, bone, urinary and gastrointestinal tracts, liver, regional lymph nodes, and the central nervous system.Alternatively, symptoms may relate more to the site of extrapulmonary involvement.
X-ray of Pneumocystis jirovecii caused pneumonia. There is increased white (opacity) in the lower lungs on both sides, characteristic of Pneumocystis pneumonia
Major gastro-intestinal illnesses:
Esophagitis is an inflammation of the lining of the lower end of the esophagus (gullet or swallowing tube leading to the stomach). In HIV infected individuals, this is normally due to fungal (candidiasis) or viral (herpes simplex-1 or cytomegalovirus) infections. In rare cases, it could be due to mycobacteria.
Unexplained chronic diarrhea in HIV infection is due to many possible causes, including common bacterial (Salmonella, Shigella, Listeria, Campylobacter, or Escherichia coli) and parasitic infections; and uncommon opportunistic infections such as cryptosporidiosis, microsporidiosis, Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) colitis. In some cases, diarrhea may be a side effect of several drugs used to treat HIV, or it may simply accompany HIV infection, particularly during primary HIV infection. It may also be a side effect of antibiotics used to treat bacterial causes of diarrhea (common for Clostridium difficile). In the later stages of HIV infection, diarrhea is thought to be a reflection of changes in the way the intestinal tract absorbs nutrients, and may be an important component of HIV-related wasting.
Major neurological illnesses:
Toxoplasmosis is a disease caused by the single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma gondii; it usually infects the brain causing toxoplasma encephalitis but it can infect and cause disease in the eyes and lungs.
Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) is a demyelinating disease, in which the gradual destruction of the myelin sheath covering the axons of nerve cells impairs the transmission of nerve impulses. It is caused by a virus called JC virus which occurs in 70% of the population in latent form, causing disease only when the immune system has been severely weakened, as is the case for AIDS patients. It progresses rapidly, usually causing death within months of diagnosis.
AIDS dementia complex (ADC) is a metabolic encephalopathy induced by HIV infection and fueled by immune activation of HIV infected brain macrophages and microglia which secrete neurotoxins of both host and viral origin. Specific neurological impairments are manifested by cognitive, behavioral, and motor abnormalities that occur after years of HIV infection and is associated with low CD4+ T cell levels and high plasma viral loads. Prevalence is 10–20% in Western countries but only 1–2% of HIV infections in India. This difference is possibly due to the HIV subtype in India.
Cryptococcal meningitis is an infection of the meninx (the membrane covering the brain and spinal cord) by the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans. It can cause fevers, headache, fatigue, nausea, and vomiting. Patients may also develop seizures and confusion; left untreated, it can be lethal.
Major HIV-associated malignancies:
Patients with HIV infection have substantially increased incidence of several malignant cancers. This is primarily due to co-infection with an oncogenic DNA virus, especially Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), and human papillomavirus (HPV). The following confer a diagnosis of AIDS when they occur in an HIV-infected person.
Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is the most common tumor in HIV-infected patients. The appearance of this tumor in young homosexual men in 1981 was one of the first signals of the AIDS epidemic. Caused by a gammaherpes virus called Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpes virus (KSHV), it often appears as purplish nodules on the skin, but can affect other organs, especially the mouth, gastrointestinal tract, and lungs.
High-grade B cell lymphomas such as Burkitt's lymphoma, Burkitt's-like lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and primary central nervous system lymphoma present more often in HIV-infected patients. These particular cancers often foreshadow a poor prognosis. In some cases these lymphomas are AIDS-defining. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) or KSHV cause many of these lymphomas.
Cervical cancer in HIV-infected women is considered AIDS-defining. It is caused by human papillomavirus (HPV).
In addition to the AIDS-defining tumors listed above, HIV-infected patients are at increased risk of certain other tumors, such as Hodgkin's disease and anal and rectal carcinomas. However, the incidence of many common tumors, such as breast cancer or colon cancer, does not increase in HIV-infected patients. In areas where HAART is extensively used to treat AIDS, the incidence of many AIDS-related malignancies has decreased, but at the same time malignant cancers overall have become the most common cause of death of HIV-infected patients.
Kaposi's sarcoma
Other opportunistic infections
AIDS patients often develop opportunistic infections that present with non-specific symptoms, especially low-grade fevers and weight loss. These include infection with Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare and cytomegalovirus (CMV). CMV can cause colitis, as described above, and CMV retinitis can cause blindness. Penicilliosis due to Penicillium marneffei is now the third most common opportunistic infection (after extrapulmonary tuberculosis and cryptococcosis) in HIV-positive individuals within the endemic area of Southeast Asia.
Diagnosis of HIV infection:
Since June 5, 1981, many definitions have been developed for epidemiological surveillance such as the Bangui definition and the 1994 expanded World Health Organization AIDS case definition. However, clinical staging of patients was not an intended use for these systems as they are neither sensitive, nor specific. In developing countries, the World Health Organization staging system for HIV infection and disease, using clinical and laboratory data, is used and in developed countries, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Classification System is used.
WHO disease staging system for HIV infection and disease :
In 1990, the World Health Organization (WHO) grouped these infections and conditions together by introducing a staging system for patients infected with HIV-1. An update took place in September 2005. Most of these conditions are opportunistic infections that are easily treatable in healthy people.
Stage I: HIV infection is asymptomatic and not categorized as AIDS
Stage II: includes minor mucocutaneous manifestations and recurrent upper respiratory tract infections
Stage III: includes unexplained chronic diarrhea for longer than a month, severe bacterial infections and pulmonary tuberculosis
Stage IV: includes toxoplasmosis of the brain, candidiasis of the esophagus, trachea, bronchi or lungs and Kaposi's sarcoma; these diseases are indicators of AIDS.
CDC classification system for HIV infection:
In the beginning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not have an official name for the disease, often referring to it by way of the diseases that were associated with it, for example, lymphadenopathy, the disease after which the discoverers of HIV originally named the virus. They also used Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections, the name by which a task force had been set up in 1981. In the general press, the term GRID, which stood for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, had been coined. However, after determining that AIDS was not isolated to the homosexual community, the term GRID became misleading and AIDS was introduced at a meeting in July 1982.By September 1982 the CDC started using the name AIDS, and properly defined the illness. In 1993, the CDC expanded their definition of AIDS to include all HIV positive people with a CD4+ T cell count below 200 per µL of blood or 14% of all lymphocytes.The majority of new AIDS cases in developed countries use either this definition or the pre-1993 CDC definition. The AIDS diagnosis still stands even if, after treatment, the CD4+ T cell count rises to above 200 per µL of blood or other AIDS-defining illnesses are cured.
Revised World Health Organization (WHO) Clinical Staging of HIV/AIDS For Adults and Adolescents (2005):
(This is the interim African Region version for persons aged 15 years or more who have had a positive HIV antibody test or other laboratory evidence of HIV infection) (It must be noted that the UN defines adolescents as persons aged 10−19 years but for surveillance purposes, the category of adults and adolescents comprises people aged 15 years and over)
1.Primary HIV infection
Asymptomatic
Acute retroviral syndrome
2.Clinical stage 1
Asymptomatic
Persistent generalized lymphadenopathy
3.Clinical stage 2
Moderate and unexplained weight loss (<10% of presumed or measured body weight)
Recurrent respiratory tract infections (such as sinusitis, bronchitis, otitis media, pharyngitis)
Herpes zoster
Recurrent oral ulcerations
Papular pruritic eruptions
Angular cheilitis
Seborrhoeic dermatitis
Fungal finger nail infections
3.Clinical stage 3
Conditions where a presumptive diagnosis can be made on the basis of clinical signs or simple investigations
Unexplained chronic diarrhoea for longer than one month
Unexplained persistent fever (intermittent or constant for longer than one month)
Severe weight loss (>10% of presumed or measured body weight)
Oral candidiasis
Oral hairy leukoplakia
Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) diagnosed in last two years
Severe presumed bacterial infections (e.g. pneumonia, empyema, meningitis, bacteraemia, pyomyositis, bone or joint infection)
Acute necrotizing ulcerative stomatitis, gingivitis or periodontitis
Conditions where confirmatory diagnostic testing is necessary
Unexplained anaemia (<>
4. Clinical stage 4
Conditions where a presumptive diagnosis can be made on the basis of clinical signs or simple investigations
HIV wasting syndrome
Pneumocystis pneumonia
Recurrent severe or radiological bacterial pneumonia
Chronic herpes simplex infection (orolabial, genital or anorectal of more than one month’s duration)
Oesophageal candidiasis
Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis
Kaposi’s sarcoma
Central nervous system toxoplasmosis
HIV encephalopathy
Conditions where confirmatory diagnostic testing is necessary:
Extrapulmonary cryptococcosis including meningitis
Disseminated non-tuberculous mycobacteria infection
Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy
Candida of trachea, bronchi or lungs
Cryptosporidiosis
Isosporiasis
Visceral herpes simplex infection
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection (retinitis or of an organ other than liver, spleen or lymph nodes)
Any disseminated mycosis (e.g. histoplasmosis, coccidiomycosis, penicilliosis)
Recurrent non-typhoidal salmonella septicaemia
Lymphoma (cerebral or B cell non-Hodgkin)
Invasive cervical carcinoma
Visceral leishmaniasis
What is AIDS?
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS or Aids) is a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in humans,[1] and similar viruses in other species (SIV, FIV, etc.). The late stage of the condition leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors. Although treatments for AIDS and HIV exist to decelerate the virus' progression, there is currently no known cure. HIV, et al., are transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk.[2][3] This transmission can come in the form of anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding, or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.
AIDS origin :
Most researchers believe that HIV originated in sub-Saharan Africa during the twentieth century; it is now a pandemic, with an estimated 38.6 million people now living with the disease worldwide. As of January 2006, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized on June 5, 1981, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history. In 2005 alone, AIDS claimed an estimated 2.4–3.3 million lives, of which more than 570,000 were children. A third of these deaths are occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, retarding economic growth and destroying human capital. Antiretroviral treatment reduces both the mortality and the morbidity of HIV infection, but routine access to antiretroviral medication is not available in all countries. HIV/AIDS stigma is more severe than that associated with other life-threatening conditions and extends beyond the disease itself to providers and even volunteers involved with the care of people living with HIV.
HIV, the infectious agent of AIDS, is thought to have originated in non-human primates in sub-Saharan Africa and transferred to humans during the 20th century. The epidemic officially began on 5 June 1981.
Two species of HIV infect humans: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-2 may have originated from the Sooty Mangabey (Cercocebus atys), an Old World monkey of Guinea-Bissau, Gabon, and Cameroon.[1] HIV-1 is more virulent. It is easily transmitted and is the cause of the majority of HIV infections globally. HIV-2 is less transmittable and is largely confined to West Africa. HIV-1 is the species described below.
Likely spread from animal to human populations :
A variety of theories exist explaining the transfer of HIV to humans, but no single hypothesis is unanimously accepted, and the topic remains controversial.
From Cameroon chimpanzees?
The most widely accepted theory is so called 'Hunter' Theory according to which transference from ape to human most likely occurred when a human was bitten by an ape or was cut while butchering one, and the human became infected.Researchers announced in May 2006 that HIV most likely originated in wild chimpanzees in the southeastern rain forests of Cameroon (modern East Province) rather than in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), as had previously been believed. Seven years of research and 1,300 chimpanzee genetic samples led Dr. Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, to identify chimpanzee communities near Cameroon's Sanaga River as the most likely originators.
Calculating based on a fixed mutation rate, the jump from chimpanzee to human likely occurred during the French colonial period (1919–1960). Comparative primatologist Jim Moore suggests that this may have been the result of colonial practices of forced labour, which could have suppressed the immune system of the initial hunter enough to allow the virus to infect and take hold. Likewise, using one needle on many patients for forced immunisations for illnesses such as sleeping sickness may have sped the virus's initial spread through Cameroon. Needles were also shared in the booming colonial city of Kinshasa, where the virus spread.
Oral polio vaccine hypothesis :
The Times published an article in 1987 stating that WHO suspected some kind of connection with its vaccine program and AIDS-epidemic. The story was almost entirely based on statements given by one unnamed WHO advisor.
Freelance journalist Tom Curtis discussed this controversial possibility for the origin of HIV/AIDS in a 1992 Rolling Stone magazine article. He put forward what is now known as the OPV AIDS hypothesis, which suggests that AIDS was inadvertently caused in the late 1950s in the Belgian Congo by Hilary Koprowski's research into a polio vaccine. Although subsequently retracted due to libel issues surrounding its claims, the Rolling Stone article motivated another freelance journalist, Edward Hooper, to probe more deeply into this subject. Hooper's research resulted in his publishing a 1999 book, The River, in which he alleged that an experimental oral polio vaccine prepared using chimpanzee kidney tissue was the route through which simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) crossed into humans to become HIV, thus starting the human AIDS pandemic.
This theory is contradicted by an analysis of genetic mutation in primate lentivirus strains that estimates the origin of the HIV-1 strain to be around 1930, with 95% certainty of it lying between 1910 and 1950.
Edward Hooper rejects the dates calculated using a fixed mutation rate on the basis that phylogenetic dating of "the most recombinogenic organisms known to medical science", immunodeficiency viruses, is "inherently incapable of making any allowance for recombination".
In February 2000 one of the original developers of the polio vaccine, Philadelphia based Wistar Institute found a vial of the original vaccine used in the vaccination program. It was analyzed in April 2001, and no traces of either HIV-1 or SIV were found in the sample. A second analysis showed that only macaque monkey kidney cells, which cannot be infected with SIV or HIV, were used to produce the vaccine.[13] While the analysis was done on only one vial of vaccine, some scientists have concluded that the polio vaccine theory of the origins of HIV is not possible.
The hypothesis that oral polio vaccine was involved in the origin of AIDS has been investigated and widely rejected by the scientific community, as a large mass of available evidence contradicts it.
Infection by HIV
AIDS is the most severe acceleration of infection with HIV. HIV is a retrovirus that primarily infects vital organs of the human immune system such as CD4+ T cells (a subset of T cells), macrophages and dendritic cells. It directly and indirectly destroys CD4+ T cells. CD4+ T cells are required for the proper functioning of the immune system. When HIV kills CD4+ T cells so that there are fewer than 200 CD4+ T cells per microliter (µL) of blood, cellular immunity is lost, leading to the condition known as AIDS. Acute HIV infection progresses over time to clinical latent HIV infection and then to early symptomatic HIV infection and later to AIDS, which is identified on the basis of the amount of CD4+ T cells in the blood and the presence of certain infections.
In the absence of antiretroviral therapy, the median time of progression from HIV infection to AIDS is nine to ten years, and the median survival time after developing AIDS is only 9.2 months. However, the rate of clinical disease progression varies widely between individuals, from two weeks up to 20 years. Many factors affect the rate of progression. These include factors that influence the body's ability to defend against HIV such as the infected person's general immune function. Older people have weaker immune systems, and therefore have a greater risk of rapid disease progression than younger people. Poor access to health care and the existence of coexisting infections such as tuberculosis also may predispose people to faster disease progression. The infected person's genetic inheritance plays an important role and some people are resistant to certain strains of HIV. An example of this is people with the CCR5-Δ32 mutation are resistant to infection with certain strains of HIV.[12] HIV is genetically variable and exists as different strains, which cause different rates of clinical disease progression. The use of highly active antiretroviral therapy prolongs both the median time of progression to AIDS and the median survival time.
Infection with HIV-1 is associated with a progressive decrease of the CD4+ T cell count and an increase in viral load. The stage of infection can be determined by measuring the patient's CD4+ T cell count, and the level of HIV in the blood.
The initial infection with HIV generally occurs after transfer of body fluids from an infected person to an uninfected one. The first stage of infection, the primary, or acute infection, is a period of rapid viral replication that immediately follows the individual's exposure to HIV leading to an abundance of virus in the peripheral blood with levels of HIV commonly approaching several million viruses per mL. This response is accompanied by a marked drop in the numbers of circulating CD4+ T cells. This acute viremia is associated in virtually all patients with the activation of CD8+ T cells, which kill HIV-infected cells, and subsequently with antibody production, or seroconversion. The CD8+ T cell response is thought to be important in controlling virus levels, which peak and then decline, as the CD4+ T cell counts rebound to around 800 cells per mL (the normal value is 1200 cells per mL ). A good CD8+ T cell response has been linked to slower disease progression and a better prognosis, though it does not eliminate the virus. During this period (usually 2-4 weeks post-exposure) most individuals (80 to 90%) develop an influenza or mononucleosis-like illness called acute HIV infection, the most common symptoms of which may include fever, lymphadenopathy, pharyngitis, rash, myalgia, malaise, mouth and esophagal sores, and may also include, but less commonly, headache, nausea and vomiting, enlarged liver/spleen, weight loss, thrush, and neurological symptoms. Infected individuals may experience all, some, or none of these symptoms. Symptoms have an average duration of 28 days and usually last at least a week although duration of symptoms may vary. Because of the nonspecific nature of these illnesses, it is often not recognized as a sign of HIV infection. Even if patients go to their doctors or a hospital, they will often be misdiagnosed as having one of the more common infectious diseases with the same symptoms. Consequently, these primary symptoms are not used to diagnose HIV infection as they do not develop in all cases and because many are caused by other more common diseases. However, recognizing the syndrome can be important because the patient is much more infectious during this period.
A strong immune defense reduces the number of viral particles in the blood stream, marking the start of the infection's clinical latency stage. Clinical latency can vary between two weeks and 20 years. During this early phase of infection, HIV is active within lymphoid organs, where large amounts of virus become trapped in the follicular dendritic cells (FDC) network.[68] The surrounding tissues that are rich in CD4+ T cells may also become infected, and viral particles accumulate both in infected cells and as free virus. Individuals who are in this phase are still infectious. During this time, CD4+ CD45RO+ T cells carry most of the proviral load.[69]
When CD4+ T cell numbers decline below a critical level, cell-mediated immunity is lost, and infections with a variety of opportunistic microbes appear. The first symptoms often include moderate and unexplained weight loss, recurring respiratory tract infections (such as sinusitis, bronchitis, otitis media, pharyngitis), prostatitis, skin rashes, and oral ulcerations. Common opportunistic infections and tumors, most of which are normally controlled by robust CD4+ T cell-mediated immunity then start to affect the patient. Typically, resistance is lost early on to oral Candida species and to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which leads to an increased susceptibility to oral candidiasis (thrush) and tuberculosis. Later, reactivation of latent herpes viruses may cause worsening recurrences of herpes simplex eruptions, shingles, Epstein-Barr virus-induced B-cell lymphomas, or Kaposi's sarcoma, a tumor of endothelial cells that occurs when HIV proteins such as Tat interact with Human Herpesvirus-8. Pneumonia caused by the fungus Pneumocystis jirovecii is common and often fatal. In the final stages of AIDS, infection with cytomegalovirus (another herpes virus) or Mycobacterium avium complex is more prominent. Not all patients with AIDS get all these infections or tumors, and there are other tumors and infections that are less prominent but still significant.
Transmission and prevention
Transmission and prevention :The three main transmission routes of HIV are sexual contact, exposure to infected body fluids or tissues, and from mother to fetus or child during perinatal period. It is possible to find HIV in the saliva, tears, and urine of infected individuals, but there are no recorded cases of infection by these secretions, and the risk of infection is negligible.
1.Sexual contact:
The majority of HIV infections are acquired through unprotected sexual relations between partners, one of whom has HIV. Heterosexual intercourse is the primary mode of HIV infection worldwide. Sexual transmission occurs with the contact between sexual secretions of one partner with the rectal, genital or oral mucous membranes of another. Unprotected receptive sexual acts are riskier than unprotected insertive sexual acts, with the risk for transmitting HIV from an infected partner to an uninfected partner through unprotected anal intercourse greater than the risk for transmission through vaginal intercourse or oral sex. Oral sex is not without its risks as HIV is transmissible through both insertive and receptive oral sex. The risk of HIV transmission from exposure to saliva is considerably smaller than the risk from exposure to semen; contrary to popular belief, one would have to swallow gallons of saliva from a carrier to run a significant risk of becoming infected.
Approximately 30% of women in ten countries representing "diverse cultural, geographical and urban/rural settings" report that their first sexual experience was forced or coerced, making sexual violence a key driver of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Sexual assault greatly increases the risk of HIV transmission as protection is rarely employed and physical trauma to the vaginal cavity frequently occurs which facilitates the transmission of HIV.
Sexually transmitted infections (STI) increase the risk of HIV transmission and infection because they cause the disruption of the normal epithelial barrier by genital ulceration and/or microulceration; and by accumulation of pools of HIV-susceptible or HIV-infected cells (lymphocytes and macrophages) in semen and vaginal secretions. Epidemiological studies from sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and North America have suggested that there is approximately a four times greater risk of becoming infected with HIV in the presence of a genital ulcer such as those caused by syphilis and/or chancroid. There is also a significant though lesser increased risk in the presence of STIs such as gonorrhea, Chlamydial infection and trichomoniasis which cause local accumulations of lymphocytes and macrophages.
Transmission of HIV depends on the infectiousness of the index case and the susceptibility of the uninfected partner. Infectivity seems to vary during the course of illness and is not constant between individuals. An undetectable plasma viral load does not necessarily indicate a low viral load in the seminal liquid or genital secretions. Each 10-fold increment of blood plasma HIV RNA is associated with an 81% increased rate of HIV transmission. Women are more susceptible to HIV-1 infection due to hormonal changes, vaginal microbial ecology and physiology, and a higher prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases. People who are infected with HIV can still be infected by other, more virulent strains.
During a sexual act, only male or female condoms can reduce the chances of infection with HIV and other STDs and the chances of becoming pregnant. The best evidence to date indicates that typical condom use reduces the risk of heterosexual HIV transmission by approximately 80% over the long-term, though the benefit is likely to be higher if condoms are used correctly on every occasion. The effective use of condoms and screening of blood transfusion in North America, Western and Central Europe is credited with contributing to the low rates of AIDS in these regions. Promoting condom use, however, has often proved controversial and difficult. Many religious groups, most noticeably the Roman Catholic Church, have opposed the use of condoms on religious grounds, and have sometimes seen condom promotion as an affront to the promotion of marriage, monogamy and sexual morality. Defenders of the Catholic Church's role in AIDS and general STD prevention state that, while they may be against the use of contraception, they are strong advocates of abstinence outside marriage.This attitude is also found among some health care providers and policy makers in sub-Saharan African nations, where HIV and AIDS prevalence is extremely high. They also believe that the distribution and promotion of condoms is tantamount to promoting sex amongst the youth and sending the wrong message to uninfected individuals. However, no evidence has been produced that promotion of condom use increases sexual promiscuity, and abstinence-only programs have been unsuccessful in the United States both in changing sexual behavior and in reducing HIV transmission. Evaluations of several abstinence-only programs in the US showed a negative impact on the willingness of youths to use contraceptives, due to the emphasis on contraceptives' failure rates.The male latex condom, if used correctly without oil-based lubricants, is the single most effective available technology to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Manufacturers recommend that oil-based lubricants such as petroleum jelly, butter, and lard not be used with latex condoms, because they dissolve the latex, making the condoms porous. If necessary, manufacturers recommend using water-based lubricants. Oil-based lubricants can however be used with polyurethane condoms. Latex condoms degrade over time, making them porous, which is why condoms have expiration dates. In Europe and the United States, condoms have to conform to European (EC 600) or American (D3492) standards to be considered protective against HIV transmission.
The female condom is an alternative to the male condom and is made from polyurethane, which allows it to be used in the presence of oil-based lubricants. They are larger than male condoms and have a stiffened ring-shaped opening, and are designed to be inserted into the vagina. The female condom contains an inner ring, which keeps the condom in place inside the vagina — inserting the female condom requires squeezing this ring. However, at present availability of female condoms is very low and the price remains prohibitive for many women. Preliminary studies suggest that, where female condoms are available, overall protected sexual acts increase relative to unprotected sexual acts, making them an important HIV prevention strategy.
With consistent and correct use of condoms, there is a very low risk of HIV infection. Studies on couples where one partner is infected show that with consistent condom use, HIV infection rates for the uninfected partner are below 1% per year.
The United States government and health organizations both endorse the ABC Approach to lower the risk of acquiring AIDS during sex:
Abstinence or delay of sexual activity, especially for youth,
Being faithful, especially for those in committed relationships,
Condom use, for those who engage in risky behavior.
This approach has been very successful in Uganda, where HIV prevalence has decreased from 15% to 5%. However, more has been done than just this. As Edward Green, a Harvard medical anthropologist, put it, "Uganda has pioneered approaches towards reducing stigma, bringing discussion of sexual behavior out into the open, involving HIV-infected people in public education, persuading individuals and couples to be tested and counseled, improving the status of women, involving religious organizations, enlisting traditional healers, and much more." However, criticism of the ABC approach is widespread because a faithful partner of an unfaithful partner is at risk of contracting HIV and that discrimination against women and girls is so great that they are without voice in almost every area of their lives. Other programs and initiatives promote condom use more heavily. Condom use is an integral part of the CNN Approach. This is:
Condom use, for those who engage in risky behavior,
Needles, use clean ones,
Negotiating skills; negotiating safer sex with a partner and empowering women to make smart choices.
In December 2006, the last of three large, randomized trials confirmed that male circumcision lowers the risk of HIV infection among heterosexual African men by around 50%. It is expected that this intervention will be actively promoted in many of the countries worst affected by HIV, although doing so will involve confronting a number of practical, cultural and attitudinal issues. Some experts fear that a lower perception of vulnerability among circumcised men may result in more sexual risk-taking behavior, thus negating its preventive effects.Furthermore, South African medical experts are concerned that the repeated use of unsterilized blades in the ritual circumcision of adolescent boys may be spreading HIV
2.Exposure to infected body fluids :
This transmission route is particularly relevant to intravenous drug users, hemophiliacs and recipients of blood transfusions and blood products. Sharing and reusing syringes contaminated with HIV-infected blood represents a major risk for infection with not only HIV, but also hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Needle sharing is the cause of one third of all new HIV-infections and 50% of hepatitis C infections in North America, China, and Eastern Europe. The risk of being infected with HIV from a single prick with a needle that has been used on an HIV-infected person is thought to be about 1 in 150 (see table above). Post-exposure prophylaxis with anti-HIV drugs can further reduce that small risk. Health care workers (nurses, laboratory workers, doctors etc) are also concerned, although more rarely. This route can affect people who give and receive tattoos and piercings. Universal precautions are frequently not followed in both sub-Saharan Africa and much of Asia because of both a shortage of supplies and inadequate training. The WHO estimates that approximately 2.5% of all HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa are transmitted through unsafe healthcare injections. Because of this, the United Nations General Assembly, supported by universal medical opinion on the matter, has urged the nations of the world to implement universal precautions to prevent HIV transmission in health care settings. Drug abuse has an additional effect of an increased tendency to engage in unprotected sexual intercourse .
The risk of transmitting HIV to blood transfusion recipients is extremely low in developed countries where improved donor selection and HIV screening is performed. However, according to the WHO, the overwhelming majority of the world's population does not have access to safe blood and "between 5% and 10% of HIV infections worldwide are transmitted through the transfusion of infected blood and blood products".
Medical workers who follow universal precautions or body-substance isolation, such as wearing latex gloves when giving injections and washing the hands frequently, can help prevent infection by HIV.
All AIDS-prevention organizations advise drug-users not to share needles and other material required to prepare and take drugs (including syringes, cotton balls, the spoons, water for diluting the drug, straws, crack pipes, etc). It is important that people use new or properly sterilized needles for each injection. Information on cleaning needles using bleach is available from health care and addiction professionals and from needle exchanges. In some developed countries, clean needles are available free in some cities, at needle exchanges or safe injection sites. Additionally, many nations have decriminalized needle possession and made it possible to buy injection equipment from pharmacists without a prescription.
3.Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) :
The transmission of the virus from the mother to the child can occur in utero during the last weeks of pregnancy and at childbirth. In the absence of treatment, the transmission rate between the mother to the child during pregnancy, labor and delivery is 25%. However, when the mother has access to antiretroviral therapy and gives birth by caesarean section, the rate of transmission is just 1%. A number of factors influence the risk of infection, particularly the viral load of the mother at birth (the higher the load, the higher the risk). Breastfeeding increases the risk of transmission by 10–15%. This risk depends on clinical factors and may vary according to the pattern and duration of breast-feeding.
Studies have shown that antiretroviral drugs, caesarean delivery and formula feeding reduce the chance of transmission of HIV from mother to child. Current recommendations state that when replacement feeding is acceptable, feasible, affordable, sustainable and safe, HIV-infected mothers should avoid breast-feeding their infant. However, if this is not the case, exclusive breast-feeding is recommended during the first months of life and discontinued as soon as possible.In 2005, around 700,000 children under 15 contracted HIV, mainly through MTCT, with 630,000 of these infections occurring in Africa. Of the estimated 2.3 million 1.7–3.5 million children currently living with HIV, 2 million (almost 90%) live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Prevention strategies are well known in developed countries, however, recent epidemiological and behavioral studies in Europe and North America have suggested that a substantial minority of young people continue to engage in high-risk practices and that despite HIV/AIDS knowledge, young people underestimate their own risk of becoming infected with HIV. However, transmission of HIV between intravenous drug users has clearly decreased, and HIV transmission by blood transfusion has become quite rare in developed countries.
exposure route : Estimated infections
per 10,000 exposures
to an infected source
Blood Transfusion 9,000
Childbirth 2,500
Needle-sharing injection drug use 67
Receptive anal intercourse* 50
Percutaneous needle stick 30
Receptive penile-vaginal intercourse* 10
Insertive anal intercourse* 6.5
Insertive penile-vaginal intercourse* 5
Receptive oral intercourse* 1
Insertive oral intercourse* 0.5
* assuming no condom use
§ source refers to oral intercourse
performed on a man