STD Info » HIV

Overview

What is HIV? 
The human immunodeficiency virus - is a virus that kills your body’s "CD4 cells." CD4 cells (also called T-helper cells) help your body fight off infection and disease. HIV infection can be passed from person to person if someone with HIV infection has sex with or shares drug injection needles with another person. It also can be passed from a mother to her baby when she is pregnant, when she delivers the baby, or if she breastfeeds her baby.

What AIDs?
AIDS - the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome - is a disease you get when HIV destroys your body’s immune system. Normally, your immune system helps you fight off illness. When your immune system fails you can become very sick and can die.

How common is HIV/AIDS?
One in five (21%) of those people living with HIV is unaware of their infection. CDC estimates that more than one million people are living with HIV in the United States.

Despite increases in the total number of people living with HIV in the United States in recent years, the annual number of new HIV infections has remained relatively stable. However, new infections continue at far too high a level, with an estimated 56,300 Americans becoming infected with HIV each year. More than 18,000 people with AIDS still die each year in the United States. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM)† are strongly affected and represent the majority of persons who have died. Through 2007, more than 576,000 people with AIDS in the United States have died since the epidemic / disease began.

Symptoms

How can I tell if I have been infected with HIV?
The only way to know if you are infected is to be tested for HIV infection. You cannot rely on symptoms to know whether or not you are infected. Many people who are infected with HIV do not have any symptoms at all for 10 years or more. The HIV test is included in the Stress Free 8 Panel Test and it is available individually HIV Antibody Test.

Risks & Complications

What happens if HIV is left untreated?
HIV can cause severe damage to the immune system and leading to a faster progression to AIDS.  Before the development of certain medications, people with HIV could progress to AIDS in just a few years. Currently, people can live much longer - even decades - with HIV before they develop AIDS. This is because of “highly active” combinations of medications that were introduced in the mid 1990s.

Testing

HIV Antibody Test is the most common screening for HIV.

Treatment

Currently there is no cure for HIV however many people continue to live healthy, happy lives more than 10 years after testing positive for HIV. The bottom line is that testing positive for HIV is not a death sentence. Treating your body well, following your doctor's instructions and maintaining good mental health are simple steps you can take to manage your health. Different things work for different people -- find out what works for you and do it.