HIV impairs your body’s ability to fight infection and disease by destroying your immune system.HIV is a virus that attacks the immune system and causes it to malfunction.
HIV infects and kills CD4 cells, a type of immune cell known as a T cell if left untreated. As HIV kills more CD4 cells, the body becomes more susceptible to a variety of diseases and malignancies.
HIV is passed from one to person by body fluids such as breast milk blood sperm vaginal and rectal fluid. The virus cannot be spread through the air, water, or through casual touch.
HIV is a lifelong illness because it inserts itself into the DNA of cells. There is presently no treatment that will eradicate HIV from the body, though many scientists are striving to find one.
It is feasible to manage HIV and live with the infection for a long time with medical care, including antiretroviral therapy.
Symptoms.
HIV and AIDS symptoms differ depending on the stage of infection.
- Infection from the start (Acute HIV)
Within two to four weeks of the virus entering the body, some HIV patients suffer a flu-like disease. Primary (acute) HIV infection is a short-term sickness that can last a few weeks. The following are examples of possible indications and symptoms:
- Fever\Headache
- Rash,
- muscle pains,
- joint pain Rash
- Sore throat and painful mouth sores
- Swollen lymph glands, mainly on the neck
- Diarrhea
- Weight loss
- Cough
- Night sweats
One might not even notice these symptoms because they are so minor. The amount of virus in your bloodstream (viral load) is, however, rather high right now.
- Clinical latent infection (Chronic HIV).
HIV is still present in the body and white blood cells at this stage of infection. Many people, however, may not experience any symptoms or infections during this time.
If one isn’t on antiretroviral medication, this period can extend for years (ART). Some people get a more severe form of the disease more sooner than others
What Causes AIDS? (Background and Cause)
HIV is a type of virus that can be passed from African chimps to humans. Scientists believe the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) spread from chimps to humans when individuals ate virus-infected ape meat.
The virus mutated into what we now know as HIV once it entered the human population. This happened in the 1920s, most likely. Over the course of several decades, HIV spread from person to person across Africa. The virus eventually spread to other parts of the globe.
HIV was found in a human blood sample for the first time in 1959. HIV is assumed to have been present in the United States since the 1970s, but it wasn’t widely recognized until the 1980s.
HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. If you haven’t contracted HIV, you can’t get AIDS. CD4 counts range from 500 to 1,500 per cubic millimeter in healthy people.
HIV continues to grow and destroy CD4 cells in the absence of treatment. AIDS is diagnosed when a person’s CD4 count goes below 200.
Furthermore, even if a person with HIV develops an opportunistic infection linked to HIV, they can still be diagnosed with AIDS.
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