The world is plagued by the HIV infection which almost always comes before AIDS. If you are HIV positive, that doesn’t mean you have AIDS. Having AIDS usually means that you are HIV positive. HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) basically breaks down your immune system until it can’t function properly anymore. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) never really kills anyone; instead it is a disease like pneumonia or something like that, that the body cannot fight because its immune system is very weak. The first reported case of AIDS in the United States was in 1981.
Nearly 900,000 American citizens have the HIV virus and about 600,000 Americans have the AIDS virus itself. HIV and AIDS are rapidly growing throughout not only the nation, but the entire world. The most common way to get infected with HIV is through sexual contact with an infected person. Other ways of getting infected are through intravenous needles, blood transfusions, unsterile tattoos or piercings can also transmit the disease. Also, sometimes a pregnant mother can pass on the infection to her fetus before it is born.
Most people do not have any distinct symptoms early on. Two months after the first exposure to the virus infected people experience flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache, depression and expanded lymph nodes. However, these symptoms vanish after a month or so causing people to usually think that it is just another viral infection. More constant or severe symptoms may not surface for a up to a decade or more after HIV first enters the body in adults, or within two years in children born with HIV infection. This period of asymptomatic infection is highly unpredictable.
Some people may begin to have symptoms in as soon as a few months, while others may be symptom-free for more than 10 years. During the asymptomatic period, however, HIV is actively multiplying, infecting and killing cells of the immune system. HIV’s effect is seen most obviously in a loss in the blood levels of CD4+ T cells (also called T4 cells) – the immune system’s key infection fighters. The virus initially disables or destroys these cells without causing symptoms. HIV causes the immune system to weaken and then eventually just stop working altogether.
Therefore one of the symptoms for a person is swollen glands or lymph nodes. A few months before the patient is infected with the AIDS virus they may have symptoms such as “lack of energy, weight loss, frequent fevers and sweats, persistent or frequent yeast infections (oral or vaginal), persistent skin rashes or flaky skin, pelvic inflammatory disease that does not respond to treatment, or short-term memory loss. ” Preventing HIV and AIDS is a very difficult process. Unless people are more responsible and feel the need to take control of their own actions, there is no way to fight this disease.
There are drugs called anti HIV drugs which are also known as nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitors. These basically prevent the virus from replicating itself or delay the spreading of the infection and also prevent the infection from affecting the body. However, these drugs are not completely reliable and the effects of the drugs themselves do not last long. Eventually the infection will spread and affect the immune system, making the body at risk and weak to other diseases and infections, and then leading the patient to get AIDS.
There is no vaccination one can take to avoid the HIV virus. The most effective cure for HIV/AIDS is prevention. The only form of prevention is safety and responsibility. HIV can infect anyone who is sexually active, has been injected with an infected intravenous needle, or who gets a blood transfusion without proper screening. The fact is that there is no cure for this disease to date and the only ways people can deal with it is by blaming a certain type of person, and somehow convince them that they are not at risk.