HIV is NOT AIDS

HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. When you have it, you do not have AIDS - acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Only if the virus is not treated can it lead to AIDS. Unlike some other viruses, the human body can’t get rid of HIV completely, even with treatment. So once you get HIV, you have it for life.

HIV attacks the body’s immune system, specifically the CD4 cells, which help the immune system fight off infections. Untreated, HIV reduces the number of CD4 cells in the body, making the person more likely to get other infections or infection-related cancers. Over time, HIV can destroy so many of these cells that the body can’t fight off infections and disease.

These opportunistic infections or cancers take advantage of a very weak immune system and when a person is eventually attacked by numerous diseases because of the damaged immune system, it is then that we can talk of AIDS. AIDS is the most severe phase of HIV infection which was not treated. People with AIDS have such badly damaged immune systems that they get an increasing number of severe illnesses, called opportunistic infections.

No effective cure currently exists for HIV, but with proper medical care, HIV can be controlled. The medicine used to treat HIV is called antiretroviral therapy or ART.

If taken the right way, every day, this medicine can dramatically prolong the lives of many people infected with HIV, keep them even more healthy, and greatly lower their chance of infecting others. Before the introduction of ART in the mid1990s, people with HIV could progress to the AIDS stage in just a few years. Today, someone diagnosed with HIV and treated before the disease is far advanced can live as long as someone who does not have HIV.