HIV and AIDS (General Information)
When Freddie Mercury died in November 1991 of complications of AIDS, the disease had been known for only ten years. Even though genetic research shows that HIV originated in the late 18th or early 19th century in west-central Africa, it wasn?t recognized by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) as the cause of AIDS until the mid-1980s. AIDS itself was recognized in 1981, only six years before Freddie Mercury tested positive for HIV.
Since its discovery, it's estimated that 36 million people died of AIDS (as of 2012). As of 2012, about 35.3 million people worldwide are livingwith HIV.
HIV vs. AIDS
It is a common misconception that HIV and AIDS are mutually interchangeable. The reality is different, though.
HIV stands for ?human immunodeficiency virus?. It is a lentivirus that causes a progressive failure of the immune system, which can result in life-threating opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive in the infected person?s body. It is not until one of the opportunistic infections or cancers develop, that the person is considered to have AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). A list of some (but not all) of the infections can be found here.
Without any treatment, the average survival time after contracting HIV is 9 to 11 years. Nowadays, with anti-retroviral therapy, HIV+patients, on average, can live until their 60s, or 70s, as some studies show. However, in patients with a very high HIV viral load, AIDS may develop sooner, which results in an increased risk of death.
How Is HIV Transmitted?
It can be transmitted through:
Blood (including menstrual blood)
Semen
Vaginal secretions
Breast milk
It can be transmitted through activities such as:
Unprotected sexual contact (vaginal or anal sex is considered high risk, oral sex is considered low risk)
Direct blood contact, including injection drug needles, blood transfusions, accidents in health care settings or certain blood products
Mother to baby (before or during birth, or through breast milk)
How Is HIV NOT Transmitted?
The HIV virus is not transmittable through:
Saliva
Tears
Sweat
Feces
Urine
It CANNOT be transmitted by:
Handshake, spitting, using the same cutlery as a HIV+ person, sharing the same facilities (toilet, bathroom, gym, swimming pool, etc), kissing, etc.
There are a lot of misconceptions still to this day about the way HIV can be transmitted, which results in discrimination and social ostracization.
As this is starting to get a bit long, I?ll end it here and make a separate thread about the myths [edit: thread here], stigma, and discrimination related to HIV/AIDS.
I might also try to put together a couple tips on chatting with a HIV+ person. While I?m by no means an expert on this topic, I?ve worked both with HIV+ patients, as well as with people in the later stages of AIDS, so I do have some personal experience.
If you have any other ideas related to this topic, let me know!
And here?s a couple questions if you feel like answering them:
Have you learned anything new in this thread?
Have you ever changed your opinion of someone after you learned they were HIV positive?
Do you think you are (or were) prejudiced about HIV positive people? If so, why?
I'm glad we have an informative thread on HIV v/s AIDS. It's really important to create awareness regarding this concept.
Have you learned anything new in this thread?
I've studied about this before so I did know how things work. However, it was great looking at the ways of transmission once again. I liked how this was really informative but precise because it can sometimes be hard to keep up with excessively long pieces of information in chunks of paragraphs.
Have you ever changed your opinion of someone after you learned they were HIV positive?Do you think you are (or were) prejudiced about HIV positive people? If so, why?
Okay so I'm going to combine both of these. My opinion about someone has never changed after I learned that they were HIV positive. Did I feel terrible? Most definitely. I'd feel sick to my gut that I can't help them and that things have to be this way. Do I pity them? No. I just think that they are dealing with it on their own and that my pity wouldn't do them any good. All I really do is to be a better friend/relative/whatever-in-reference to the person - I try to make them happier. I think I was prejudiced about HIV positive people when I was really young because it's still a taboo topic in India. It's like not many people know about the transmission causes and so are really.. scared I think. However, that prejudice vanished away when my parents told me the clear story and facts about HIV and AIDS.
Yeah, pity isn't what those people need. Great answers, thank you! :)
I haven't learned anything new yet but this is great that it's here. It didn't change my opinion and I have never been prejudiced against HIV positive people. I know quite a few as I did/do a lot of volunteer and awareness work about HIV/AIDS. great thread.
That's amazing that you're volunteering with HIV+ people too :) Thanks for the answers! :)
This a great post rather for more insight people can watch.."the normal heart"..about the misconceptions found out during AIDS origin...
Yes, it's an amazing movie! I wish it was more well known. @Suri
These days, the HIV test's answer can be given to you, almost right away. People used to have to wait days to find the results. This, really makes it a lot easier to have done.
It is a LOT easier on people to find out the results, quickly, than to need to wait and wait. It really seemed as if it took forever.
After you get your results, two things can happen. If you do not have HIV, you will feel really good! If you DO have HIV, you will be set up for counseling, to explain exactly what this means to you. You will be asked to give names of people you have had sex with, as a precaution for them. This is a good thing, if you are HIV positive. (The more it is a secret, the more HIV that will happen to people, all over the world). It would seem to me, that knowing if you do or do not have HIV is something we should really be grateful to learn. How would you feel if we could not find out, at all? TO know more about HIV test visit http://healthdocpoint.com/hivaids-testing-and-treatment-curing-hivaids
Thanks for this. I have an HIV+ family member, and growing up there was always this discussion about whether disclosing their HIV status would be helpful or harmful because of how many misconceptions there are.