HIV only infects humans and is not able to survive long outside the human body. Therefore, transmission happens human to human. Only certain body fluids (semen, blood, pre-seminal fluid, rectal fluid, vaginal fluids, and breast milk) can transmit HIV. To get HIV, these fluids from an HIV-infected person must come in contact with a mucous membranes (mouth, rectum, vagina, and the opening of the penis), damaged tissue, or be directly injected into the bloodstream of someone who is not infected. In the US, HIV is spread mainly by having sex or sharing needles with individuals infected with HIV.
HIV weakens the body’s immune system by destroying a certain type of white blood cell (CD4). These cells are important in fighting disease and infection. Viruses can only replicate by taking over a host’s cell. HIV hijacks the CD4 cells in the body and uses it to make copies of itself at an extraordinary rate (as many as 10 million to 10 billion individual viruses are produced daily). As the new viruses are released the CD4 cell is destroyed. Our own cells become HIV factories and as more viruses are produced, the immune system becomes compromised. HIV cannot be cleared out of the body (the immune system can’t seem to get rid of HIV). After so many cell have been destroyed, the body loses the ability to fight infections and disease, this leads to AIDS (the final stage). Once a person has HIV, they have it for life. It can hide for long periods of time and not everyone who gets HIV has it progress to AIDS. Treatments can keep the level of virus in the body low.
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