All About HIV and AIDS

The virus known as HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) lowers your immune system's defenses against common infections and diseases.

When HIV has badly harmed your immune system, a series of potentially fatal diseases and disorders are known collectively as AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome).

HIV can spread from one person to another, while AIDS cannot. Although there is presently no cure for HIV, highly efficient pharmacological therapies allow the majority of those infected to live long, healthy lives.

Most HIV-positive individuals will not have any AIDS-related illnesses and live normal lives if they receive an early diagnosis and proper therapies.

How does HIV spread?

HIV is transmitted through certain bodily fluids from an infected person. This could occur:

By engaging in unprotected vaginal or anal intercourse with an HIV-positive individual.
When someone is "unprotected," they are not taking HIV medication or condoms.
By sharing each other’s drug needles.
By contact with an HIV-positive person's blood.
During pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding, from mother to child.

Who is at risk for HIV infection?

HIV can affect anyone; however, some groups are more likely to contract it than others:

People who are infected with another STD (STD). You run a higher risk of contracting or spreading HIV if you have an STD.
Drug injectors who use shared needles.
Bisexual and gay men.
Hispanic/Latino and Black/African Americans. Compared to other races and ethnicities, they account for a higher percentage of new HIV diagnoses and HIV-positive individuals.
People with unsafe sex, such as not using condoms or HIV prevention or treatment medications.

Variables like stigma, discrimination, poverty, education, and geographic location can also influence people's risk for HIV.

Signs and symptoms

HIV symptoms change depending on the stage of infection. Although those who have HIV are most contagious in the first few months after becoming infected, many don't become aware of their condition until much later. People may suffer no symptoms in the first several weeks following the first infection or flu-like symptoms, such as fever, headache, rash, or sore throat.

They may also have other signs, and symptoms like swollen lymph nodes, weight loss, fever, diarrhea, and cough as the virus gradually weakens the immune system. In addition, they risk contracting life-threatening conditions such as Kaposi's sarcoma and lymphomas, cryptococcal meningitis, severe bacterial infections, and tuberculosis (TB).

Diagnosis

Rapid diagnostic tests that show results the same day can be used to diagnose HIV. This makes it much easier to correlate early diagnosis with care and therapy. Self-tests for HIV are another option for people with this disease. A certified and trained health or community worker performs a confirmatory test in a community center or clinic because no one test can fully diagnose HIV positivity.

Most commonly used HIV diagnostic tests look for antibodies that individuals produce as part of their immunological response to combat HIV. People normally produce anti-HIV antibodies within 28 days after infection. They go through a period known as the "window period," during which they may have no symptoms of HIV infection and no high enough levels of HIV antibodies developed to be detected by routine tests. Still, they are also at risk of spreading the virus to others.

After becoming infected and going without treatment and viral suppression, a person may pass HIV to a partner with whom they engage in sexual activity or drug use, or the case of pregnant women, to their unborn child while they are nursing.

What happens when you test positive for HIV?

Before beginning treatment, if you are diagnosed with HIV, you will undergo routine blood tests to track the development of the virus.

There are two crucial blood tests:

HIV viral load test: blood test to measure the amount of HIV.

CD4 lymphocyte cell counts a blood test that measures how HIV has damaged your immune system. It used to measure the amount of HIV in your blood.

Depending on your circumstances and in conjunction with your HIV specialist, treatment can be begun at any time after diagnosis.

How to prevent HIV?

HIV transmission and risk can decrease by:

Getting an HIV test.
Less risky sexual practices. This entails keeping your sexual partners to a minimum and wearing latex condoms each time you engage in sexual activity. If your partner is sensitive to latex, use a polyurethane condom.
Being diagnosed and treated for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
Not using an injectable.
Speaking with your doctor about HIV prevention medications
Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is for those at extremely high risk of contracting HIV but do not yet have it. The daily use of PrEP can lower this risk.
Those who are exposed to HIV should take PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis). It is only used in emergencies. PEP needs to be begun 72 hours after a potential HIV encounter.

Treatment

Antiretroviral (ARV) medication combinations are used in treatment plans to control HIV illness. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) slows down viral replication while allowing an individual's immune system to recover, strengthen, and restore the ability to combat opportunistic infections, some malignancies, and HIV infection.

WHO has supported Treat Everyone, which calls for all HIV-positive individuals—including children, adolescents, adults, pregnant women, and nursing mothers—to get lifelong ART, regardless of their clinical status or CD4 cell level.

WHO advises a quick ART introduction for all HIV-positive individuals, including providing ART to those prepared to begin treatment the same day as their diagnosis.

If you need clarification, visit Spire pharmacy or consult our GP online.

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