Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a viral infection that can be passed through the blood, sexual fluids (semen, preseminal fluid, rectal fluid, or vaginal fluid) or breast milk of an HIV-infected person. People can get HIV one of these fluids enters the body by way of the mucous membranes (the soft, moist skin found in any opening of the body) or the bloodstream.
HIV can be passed during vaginal, anal or oral sex with a HIV-infected person. An HIV-infected mother can transmit HIV to her infant during pregnancy, delivery or while breastfeeding. People can also become infected with HIV when using injection drugs through sharing needles and other equipment (or works) including cookers and cottons with someone who is infected.
HIV positive individuals are significantly more likely to transmit the virus in the first few months after acquiring the infection, when they have very high levels of the virus (viral load) in their body fluids. HIV positive individuals become significantly less likely to transmit after they start taking HIV treatment, and their viral load becomes undetectable or fully suppressed – this usually takes up to six months. After six months with an undetectable viral load the chances of passing HIV on to someone else is zero.
Many people infected with HIV don’t know that they have become infected, because they don’t have any symptoms of infection. But some people do experience a flu-like illness with fever, rash, joint pains and enlarged lymph nodes. If an immune reaction to HIV occurs, it usually takes place between 2 to 4 weeks after HIV infection has happened.
A person with HIV may look healthy and feel good, but they can still pass the virus to others, especially during the initial infection period. You cannot tell if someone has HIV by just looking at them. The only way to determine whether HIV is present in a person’s body is by testing.
HIV infects cells of the human immune system and destroys or impairs their function. Untreated HIV leads to slow destruction of a persons’ immune system making them more susceptible to many kinds of infections. Once a person with HIV develops any one of a number of rare infections or cancers—tuberculosis, pneumonia, candidiases or tumors—they are said to have AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome).
If you have never been tested for HIV, you should be tested at least once. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends at least one HIV test for everyone aged 13 to 64 who visits a doctor. CDC also suggests being tested at least once a year if you do things that can transmit HIV infection. These include:
Timing is important. A simple blood test can detect HIV infection, but tests can’t detect HIV immediately after infection. The test is highly accurate if performed 45 days after your last risk or exposure. This means, depending on the level of recent risk, and if your initial test was negative for HIV, it may be advisable to repeat the HIV test again after this “window period.”
If you have been tested for HIV after this window period and the result is negative and you never do things that might transmit HIV infection, then you and your health care provider can decide whether you need to get tested again.
There are many things you can do to help protect your health if you test positive for HIV. Some specific things you can do if you’re positive for HIV are:
The introduction of powerful anti-retroviral therapies has made a dramatic impact. With antiretroviral therapy (called ART), people with HIV can live long and healthy lives. The goal of HIV treatment is to reduce the amount of virus in the blood, called viral load. Treatment can reduce the viral load to undetectable levels, and the virus cannot be passed on to HIV-negative partners through sex. This called U=U: undetectable. equals untransmitable.
There are lots of ways to prevent HIV.
