About HIV/AIDS

What is AIDS?

AIDS stands for:

• Acquired (a condition that develops over time)
• Immune (the system that serves as the body's defense against infections and diseases)
• Deficiency (is weak or lacking normal strength)
• Syndrome (a group of characteristics that the condition displays)

In short, over a period of time the body's immune system breaks down, and the person is unable to fight off infections and other certain diseases.  AIDS is caused by HIV infection.

What is HIV infection?

HIV stands for:

• Human (only infects human beings)
• Immunodeficiency (immune system is lacking what it needs to keep the body healthy)
• Virus (minute organism)

HIV is a virus that enters a person's bloodstream. This virus is very tiny, and very difficult to see even with a powerful microscope. At first, and usually for a very long time afterward, there are no signs or symptoms that indicate that the person has been infected. Make no mistake about it, the person is infected and is infectious (able to spread it to others).

What is the difference between HIV and AIDS?

A lot of people think that HIV and AIDS are the same thing; but they're not. An HIV diagnosis means that the person is infected with the HIV virus. They can be infected for a very long time before they begin to have health problems. In the later stages of infection, when the immune system has fallen to a particular level or the person has been diagnosed with certain diseases, the diagnosis changes to AIDS.

How do you get HIV?

The infected person passes the HIV virus to another person by body fluids. These body fluids must find a way into the bloodstream of the second person by what is called a 'port of entry' (a break in the skin through cuts and scrapes, bleeding gums or across a mucosal lining).

Blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk all have a high concentration of the virus, and are the fluids that a person could be exposed to in normal every-day living (everyone has accidents that cause bleeding, and a lot of people are involved in some type of sexual activity). Pregnant women who are HIV+ can pass the virus to their baby during the pregnancy, during delivery or by breast-feeding.

Other fluids that surround the organs of the body contain a high concentration of the virus, but chances of coming into contact with them are extremely rare. Fluids like urine, tears, saliva are not dangerous themselves, but sometimes contain a small amount of blood.

Who is at risk for being infected?

Anyone can become infected with HIV. It's not who you are, but what you do that puts you at risk for contracting the HIV virus. Remember that it takes a body fluid from an infected person getting into your bloodstream to infect you. Some of the obvious ways this could happen are:

• By having unprotected sexual activity (oral, anal and vaginal). Multiple partners could further increase this risk.
• Needle sharing (both recreational and prescribed drugs)
• Occupational exposures (on-the-job accidents)

Other possibilities are:
• Body piercing/tattoos with instruments that haven't been sterilized in an autoclave.
• Sharing smoking paraphernalia (the pipe gets hot, burns your lip, and burns the lip of those you are sharing it with. Blood from blisters can be passed from one person to the next).
• Gang rituals involving someone bleeding (there's a chance that you could come into contact with their blood).

How can you tell if you're infected?

There is no way anyone can tell just by looking if a person is infected. There is one, and only one way to tell if you are infected with the HIV virus, and that is to get tested. A person who is not tested can be infected for a very long time, sometimes as long as 10 years, before they start to feel the first inkling that something is not right.

Getting tested for HIV is a very personal decision. Many people who have not put themselves at high risk have chosen to be tested, and the majority of people who chose to get tested do not test positive for the antibodies. Those who are practicing high-risk behaviors, the ones most likely to be infected, often are scared and avoid getting tested.