World AIDS Day !!
hello everyone
hope you're right
If you didn't know, today we are the first december, and since 1988 the world dedicate this day to raise awareness of the AIDS pandemic and the spread of HIV infection.
so let's know more about this infection.
what is HIV and AIDS ?
HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is a type of virus that can cause a condition called AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). HIV infection affects the immune system, which is the body's natural defenses against the disease. If left untreated, serious illness can occur. Normally innocuous infections, such as influenza or bronchitis, can get worse, become very difficult to treat or even cause death. In addition, the risk of cancer is also increased.
What sets HIV apart from other viruses is that it reaches the immune system by taking control of CD4 T cells. the role of this cells is to coordinate the immune response when a virus occurs. When HIV uses CD4 cells to spread, it damages and destroys them. In doing so, HIV undermines the immune system from within, which has the role of combating it.
how it is transmitted ?
HIV is transmitted through body fluids: blood, sperm, vaginal secretions and breast milk. These body fluids only transmit HIV if they come into contact with an area that allows it to enter the body.
Most often, the virus is contracted during unprotected sexual activity or was in the past through needle exchange among injecting drug users.
In most industrialized countries, the most important route of HIV transmission is the anal sex. That's why the most affected by HIV infection are gays and bisexuals men.
However note that HIV is not spread in the following ways:
You can not contract it with a handshake, sweat or tears. It is not carried by insects. It is not contracted on toilet seats, swimming in public pools, sharing food or using the laundry, towels or telephone of an infected person.
How to avoid contracting HIV?
Main means of prevention
• safer sex and especially condom use for penetrative sex
• widespread screening of HIV in blood donors
• the provision of single-use syringes for drug users
• antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy and avoidance of breastfeeding to prevent mother-to-child transmission.
Now, after we talked about this infection. what about people's who got it ?
if this infection attack the immunity do they live as normal people ? do they face complications in other disease ? can they have sex ? can they get married and have kids ?
well let me say thanks to science, HIV now is considered as a chronic disease.
We know today that a well-groomed HIV-positive person presents an extremely low risk of transmitting HIV during sex, under certain conditions:
The treatment is taken regularly,
It causes an undetectable viral load (or viral load below the threshold of 50 copies / ml in the plasma for more than 6 months and at the last most recent test),
The measurement of the viral load is done regularly, at least every 3 or 4 months
so, with a medical treatment an HIV positive person can live as a normal person.
What about children ?
well, If you’re a woman who is positive, medications can make it so you have less than a 1 percent chance of transmitting HIV to your unborn child. If you’re a man, your sperm will need to be “washed” of HIV and then inseminated into your partner, wife, or surrogate. The main difference for couples is that you’ll need a specialist who deals with HIV, fertility, and insemination.
Some people are scared from HIV positiv persons , i hope now after reading this post you will understand this chronic diseas and you will understand people who got it.
Thanks for reading me 🌷
