Contents: Preface. Acknowledgement. 1. Human diseases with special reference to AIDS introductory remarks/Irfan Ali Khan and Atiya Khanum. 2. AIDS: the global challenge/Syeda Sameena Aziz. 3. Introduction, awareness and treatment for AIDS/Rizwana Mubeen. 4. Plant biotechnology in aid of AIDS/Susan Eapen. 5. Plant constituents in AIDS therapy/Ujvala B. Raul and M.R. Heble. 6. Plants combating AIDS/T.V.V. Seetharami Reddi, S. Prasanthi, B.V.A. Ramarao Naidu, J. Suneetha and Hari Babu. 7. Futuristic approach for the treatment of dreaded disease : AIDS/Amla Batra, Sandhya Goyal, Poonam Khanna and Madan Mohan Sharma. 8. Herbal Therapy for AIDS/Irfan Ali Khan and Atiya Khanum.

"A virus has been sweeping the world for the past two decades, causing a disease which has killed millions of people and which looks likely to kill millions more. This virus is called HIV, which stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. After a period of time, this virus begins to damage the immune system, and this is known as the diseases AIDS. Global estimates indicate that over 3/4 of the five billion world population cannot afford the products of the western pharmaceutical industry and have to rely upon the use of traditional medicines, which are mainly derived from plants. As a part of strategy to reduce financial burden on developing countries which spend 40-50% of their total health budget on drugs, W.H.O. currently encourages, recommends and promotes the inclusion of herbal drugs in National Health Care Programmes because such drugs are easily available at a price within the reach of a common man and as such are time tested and thus considered to be much safer than the modern synthetic drugs. Sensing this demand, the material of this book has been compiled to help the scientists to keep themselves abreast of the latest developments. This book will cater to the immediate needs of the students, researchers, faculty members and pharmaceutical industries in India and abroad."