What are HIV and AIDS?
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Although they are often mixed up these two words have different meanings. ‘HIV’ is the name of a virus, whereas ‘AIDS’ is a name for a collection of illnesses caused by this virus
What is HIV?
HIV stands for ‘Human Immuno-deficiency Virus’.
‘Immunodeficiency’ refers to how this virus weakens a person’s immune system, the part of the body that fights off diseases.
HIV has been in humans for many decades but was only identified in the early 80s.
What does the virus do?
Some people notice no symptoms when they are first infected with HIV. But within six weeks of infection most people suffer a short illness (lasting around two weeks) as their body reacts to the virus.
This involves two or more of the following:
- body rash
- sore throat
- fever.
Once this passes an infected person usually feels fine for a number of years.
However, unless they start treatment before the virus causes too much damage, as years go by they will usually start to suffer life-threatening illnesses such as:
- cancer ...
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