HIV/AIDS has been with us for some decades now with the medical world battling to get a cure or a vaccine. Meanwhile, there are a lot of misconceptions and myths which we should all be aware of… and that is the purpose of this article.
This will also serve as a reminder of the basic facts about HIV/AIDS.
- Prompt treatment can
turn this deadly disease into a chronic disease.
- Timely anti-retroviral
treatment (ART) can help at every stage of the disease, slowing, or even
preventing, progression to the next stage.
- HIV stands for the human
immunodeficiency virus, a mighty microbe that attacks the immune system. The
immune system is your body’s defense against any infection.
- HIV is spread through body
fluids, such as blood and intimate contact. It is not spread through casual
contact, such as being in the same room as someone who is infected, breathing
the same air as someone who carries the virus, or by touching toilet seats or
doorknobs.
- You cannot get HIV from water fountains nor from exercise equipment
at the gym.
- You cannot get HIV from hugging, kissing, or shaking hands with an
HIV-positive person.
- It is not spread through mosquitos.
- The most common ways
HIV spreads are through sex and used needles.
- You cannot tell who has HIV by
looking at the person, especially since one out of seven people with the virus
do not know they have it.
- The virus can replicate
rapidly once it has entered a new host.
- Symptoms similar to the flu – headache,
body aches, fatigue, and nausea – may occur two to four weeks after the initial
infection but many people have no symptoms for years.
- The HIV virus destroys the
immune system, depleting the body’s ability to fight infections.
- Infections
rare in those with healthy immune systems can take advantage of the opportunity
to attack someone with an immune deficiency, someone without strong defenses.
- These destructive “opportunistic” infections include rare fungal, bacterial or
viral diseases in the lungs, brain, eyes, or stomach.
- With depleted immunity
and opportunistic infections, the HIV infection progresses to AIDS,
acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
- The dramatic weight loss and muscle
wasting, chronic diarrhea, respiratory problems, blindness, and dementia that
occurs with AIDS are the damage of opportunistic infections the body can no
longer resist.
- The sooner a person knows he
or she is infected and starts treatment, the better his or her chances of
keeping the infection off its destructive path.