What is HIV and AIDS?

Why you should know about HIV/AIDS ?

You might have seen many times in the news papers and television channels advertisements about the HIV and AIDS. These are generally issued by the government in the view of public interest to create awareness among the people about HIV and AIDS.

 Despite of broad advertisement practices and awareness programs conducted by the governments and NGO’s, there are still lot of misconceptions and disbeliefs among the people about this HIV/AIDS. Some people fall prey to the fake medicines to this disease (though there is not one that cures completely).

Also lot of people fear to touch those people who are having positive HIV as they don’t know what and ifs of this disease.  As most of the people think that HIV and AIDS are one and the same but in reality they are not.

Hence, knowing and sharing about this disease is important as it helps in following good practices to prevent the disease and also teaches how to look after the people suffering with HIV/AIDS. So first one must have an idea about what is HIV and what is AIDS?

To begin with HIV is one of the dreadful diseases with no cure. At present, there are around 35 million people are suffering with AIDS. Despite millions of people killed by AIDS, still many people don’t know the difference between HIV and AIDS, while many people feel shy to discuss and share what they know.

What is HIV or the Definition of HIV?

The full form of HIV is Human Immunodeficiency Virus. It is a lethal viral infection for humans. The meaning of each word in this expansion defines completely what HIV is about.

Human – Human means people

Immuno deficiency – Immuno indicates the resistivity power of an individual to harmful diseases in the sense protection power against the bacteria and virus that are responsible for causing illness and diseases. And immune deficiency indicates the diminishing immunity power because of being infected by the virus.

Virus –

So altogether what it means is HIV is a virus that primarily deteriorates the Immunity system of a person, if gets infected with. Hence, you can say that, HIV is a viral infection rather than a disease and it decreases the immunity power of a person because of which he/she will become less resistant to other harmful bacteria and virus. This way person suffers with several other diseases as the HIV infection grew stronger.

HIV and AIDS are they same?

No, HIV and AIDS are not necessarily same.

HIV can lead to AIDS-Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome or disease. AIDS is the final stage of HIV infection.

As you have already read earlier, that HIV specifically affects human immune system. It affects specifically CD4 cells also called T-Helper cells.  Due to lowered immunity the person is prone to more infections. Progressively this lowered immunity leads to AIDS.

So a person is said to be having AIDS when he or she is having more opportunistic infections such as pneumonia, Tuberculosis and with low CD4 count(<200/cubic mm of blood).

How to Cure HIV/AIDS?

At present there is no cure for HIV.  But researches are continuing word wide to find effective cure for HIV.

Worldwide HIV Statistics:

• More than 35 million people are now living with HIV.
• 3.2 million are under the age of 15.
• In 2013, an estimated 2.1 million people were newly infected with HIV.
• 240,000 were under the age of 15.
• Every day more than 5,700 people contract HIV—nearly 240 every hour.
• In 2013, 1.5 million people died from AIDS.
• Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly 78 million people have contracted HIV and close to 39 million have died of AIDS-related causes.
• In 2013, around 12.9 million people living with HIV (37% of the total) had access to antiretroviral therapy

Reference:

1.) http://amfar.org/worldwide-aids-stats/