HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. It breaks down the immune system -our body’s defense against disease. HIV destroys white blood cells which need to fight infection. As the white cell count falls to harmful levels ailments and diseases emerge. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), a life threatening illness.

Immune system

Normally, the immune system produces white blood cells and antibodies that attack bacteria and viruses. HIV thus makes its victims readily vulnerable to any disease. Gastrointestinal symptoms include poor appetite, diarrhoea, severe fatigue that leads to rapid weight loss etc.. The virus strikes your CD4 cells (or T4 cells), which are required to fight off illnesses. HIV was given this name because its long term impact is to attack the immune system of the body, which makes it weak and deficient.

We live virtually in a sea of germs and at each moment a huge number of them are entering our body. HIV-1 is overriding worldwide. Whenever people refer to HIV, it’s known to be HIV-1. HIV-infected men, for example, are eight times more likely than HIV-infected girls to develop a skin cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma. Integrase inhibitors work by blocking integrase, the enzyme that HIV uses to incorporate genetic material of the virus to its target audience cell.

HIV-infected children

They frequently are slow to reach significant milestones in motor skills and mental development like crawling, walking and talking. As the disease progresses, many children develop neurologic problems like difficulty walking, poor school performance, seizures, and other indicators of HIV encephalopathy. HIV/AIDS is always fatal and it is vital to know how it functions as far as possible to stop one from getting the illness. HIV can cross the placenta during pregnancy, infect the baby during the birth and, unlike many STDs, may also infect the infant through breastfeeding. HIV is carried in semen, blood, seminal fluid, vaginal fluid (like menstrual fluid) and breast milk.

It can not pass through unbroken skin, however, and it is not airborne like influenza or the common cold – it must enter the body through the blood or through sex. HIV is much more easily spread in the presence of inflammatory STDs like gonorrhea. Infection at delivery is the most frequent mode of transmission. A range of factors influence the risk of infection, particularly the viral load of the mother at birth – the greater the load, the greater the risk.

Conclusion

Diseases a healthy person can fight have the capability to take hold in someone suffering from AIDS. An HIV/AIDS patient can display any number of symptoms, with those symptoms depending on which phase of the disease the man is experiencing. Infection with HIV occurs by the transport of blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus in infected immune cells. Opportunistic infections are common in people with AIDS. Nearly every organ system is affected.