Learning more about HIV and AIDS

Do you know someone who has HIV or AIDS? This is commonly known to be a condition that does not have a total cure. This is what most individuals don’t like. If you have this you will probably be in controversy among people. Some are rejected by their friends because of such a condition.

Do you want to know about HIV and AIDS? Let us start by knowing the difference between AIDS and HIV. Do you think both are the same? Let’s find out. AIDS mean Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. From the word acquired it means that it is passed to individuals through direct or indirect contact excluding genetic and inborn. In this case, the individual is having a low immune system meaning he or she is very prone to different infections. It is also stated that it is a syndrome, meaning it has numerous signs and symptoms. Next is HIV. This means Human Immunodeficiency Virus. This is a type of virus that can eventually trigger AIDS. This virus is capable of destroying the immune system of our body. It requires a lot of time before an infected person will show its signs and symptoms. This will result to further transmission of the virus. The person may think that he is not infected where, in fact, he is.

Let us understand how HIV attacks our body. When the virus is already present in our system it will destroy several types of cells. Mostly, it attacks cells that are part of the immune system. The virus will eventually stick itself to a molecule called the CD4. As the virus enters its surface it will release its genetic material responsible for its replication. In a certain period, the invaded cell will die and the new HIV cell is produced. This process is rapid that our immune system can no longer fight the invading microorganism.

Now we know how the virus acts on our body. Let’s now familiarize the different signs and symptoms of this condition. Actually, an infected individual will stay free from manifestations and may even appear like a healthy normal person. As the period of invasion progresses, the person will gradually experience loss of memory, disturbed gait, sleep cycle alterations, and even depression… In cases of a severe condition of this disease the person may require absolute treatment. In Human Immunodeficiency Virus, there are so called minor and major signs. The minor signs would include coughing persistently for about a month or two, having a herpes zoster, having herpes simplex, and general pruritic dermatitis. On the other hand, the major signs would include sudden weight loss, diarrhea for a long period, and chronic fever that may be due to some infection in the system.

Do you know what are the common signs and symptoms of Acquired Immunodeficiency Virus and Human Immunodeficiency virus? Always remember these signs and symptoms are not confirmatory manifestations of the condition. The symptoms include depression, loss of weight, general weakness, nausea and vomiting, Candida Albicans, and diarrhea. Because of low immune system status, it would be easy for opportunistic infections to set in the body system. Let us know these infections. It includes the bacterial infections (example: tuberculosis), viral infections (example: hepatitis), fungal infections (example: Candidiasis), pneumonia infections (example: Bacterial pneumonia), and parasitic infection (example: Toxoplasmosis). What are the modes of transmission of this disease? It can be transferred by an infected person to another individual through sexual intercourse, blood transfers, maternal to fetal circulation.

There are risk factors for having such a condition. This includes the reusing of needles, unscreened blood transfusion, donation of organ, exposure to some places. How to know if you are having this kind of disease? Actually there are a lot of diagnostic procedures for this condition but despite it, the best thing you can do is to have a confirmatory test. This test is called the Western blot analysis. This will save time and money. Just be practical enough. What is the treatment? Your doctor would probably prescribe you with Anteroviral drugs. Remember that this drug will not cure HIV or AIDS. It will just decrease the reproduction rate of the virus. All types of virus cannot be killed by medications.