Recent advances in our knowledge of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) could have a major impact on practitioners in both infection control and employee health. The discovery that a retrovirus, the human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV-III) is the cause of AIDS could be used to help health care workers better understand this disease. Those of us who are trying to provide our employees with up-to-date information on AIDS should use this new information to help employees understand the nature of the disease, its transmissibility and non-transmissibility. Now that the disease can be linked to a specific agent, employees may find AIDS to be much less mysterious. The retrovirus link is a major step forward in understanding this disease and may eventually lead to more effective treatment and possibly a vaccine. Our knowledge continues to evolve in much the same way as our understanding of Legionnaires' Disease and Toxic Shock Syndrome.

The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was discussed extensively at recent infectious diseases meetings in Washington, D.C. The results of original research conducted by investigators at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Pasteur Institute in Paris, and medical centers throughout the world were presented at the meetings. A number of issues have been clarified and the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together.