AIDS Forum
Information About Aids
What is HIV?
The letters HIV stand for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The virus HIV destroys some white blood cells that are called CD 4+ T-Cells. These T-Cells are very critical to the daily normal functioning of the human immune systems, which are the systems that defend the human body against illness and disease. The HIV virus weakens the human immune system, and an AIDS infected person is more susceptible to developing other medical conditions such as cancer and also becoming infected with other viruses, bacterias, and sometimes parasites.
What is AIDS?
The letters AIDS stand for Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome. People who tests positive for the HIV syndrome can be diagnosed with "full-blown" AIDS when a medical laboratory test shows that the person's immune system is completely weakened by the HIV virus or when the person develops at least one of about twenty five different opportunistic infections. These opportunistic infections are diseases that might not make a person with a normal functioning immune system sick, but that take advantage of an infected person's damaged immune system.
How does HIV cause AIDS?
HIV destroys many CD 4+ T-cells that are critical to the normal functioning of people's immune systems. As the HIVvirus kills these T-cells, HIV infected people are susceptible to getting illnesses that most of the time do not affect people with healthy immune system status. There have been studies of thousands of people, and most HIV infected people are infected with the virus for many years before enough damage to the immune system takes place to make them susceptible to common AIDS diseases. HIV Tests are available that measure the amount of HIV virus in the blood - the "viral load". Higher viral loads are much more likely to have the person develop AIDS related illness and to experience a decrease in their CD 4+ T-cells. By reducing the amount of HIV virus in the human body with anti-retroviral medication can help to a great deal to slow the destruction of people's immune systems and slow the progression of illness.
How long does it take for HIV to become AIDS?
The length of time between the HIV infection and then having it progress to AIDS is different for each individual person and can depend on a variety of factors including what a person's original health status and their health related lifestyle and habits. With a proper lifestyle, the time frame between HIV virus infection and developing "full blown" AIDS related illnesses can be as long as ten or fifteen years, sometimes even longer. Recent advances in Anti-retroviral therapy can help slow the progression of HIV to AIDS by significantly reducing the amount of the virus in a people's bodies. There also are other advanced medical treatments that can even prevent or cure some of the problems and disease that are associated with AIDS, although the current medical treatments do not cure the HIV virus or AIDS. Like all medical issues, early detection of infection allows for many more options for medical treatment and preventive planning..
Is there a cure for AIDS ?
At this tim there is no known cure for AIDS. There are many medical treatments that help to slow-down the speed in which HIV virus weakens the human immune system. In addition, there are a lot of other treatments that can prevent or even cure some of the medical issues and diseases associated with AIDS and HIV . AIDS Researchers are currently testing a wide variety of medical preventive and also curative AIDS vaccine products, but a proven and successful AIDS vaccine is probably years away.
How can I tell if I'm infected with AIDS ?
For everyone, the only way to really know if you are infected is to get tested for an HIV virus infection. People cannot accurately rely on medical AIDS symptoms alone to know if you are really infected. Most of the people that are infected with the HIV virus do not have any medical or health symptoms at all for ten years or even longer. It is impossible to rely on medical symptoms to determine if a person has AIDS or HIV. The symptoms of AIDS are very much similar to the medical symptoms of many other diseases and illnesses. AIDS and HIV infection is a clinical medical diagnosis made by a medical practitioner or doctor based on the specific medical criteria as established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If you would like a list of AIDS testing sites please visit the National HIV Testing Resources for more information.