HIV and Associated Infections in the Intensive Care Unit: Perspectives from North America

Asia and Africa have experienced a degree of devastation from human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) not encountered within the United States. Still, in the setting of an estimated 40 million people living with AIDS worldwide, the United States has approximately 900,000 cases since 1981. At the end of 2001, a reported 43,158 people were living with AIDS in the United States (1,2).