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HIV AIDS

  • 05-02-2009 8:15pm
    #1
    lurrrvs2sp00ge
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 215 ✭✭


    I read up on wikapedia about HIV out of curiosity and found the area of why it develops into AIDS, what happens when it does and what is the difference was very vague. Could somebody please shed some light on this for me


Comments

  • #2
    Vorsprung
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,816 ✭✭✭Vorsprung


    lurrrvs2sp00ge wrote: »
    I read up on wikapedia about HIV out of curiosity and found the area of why it develops into AIDS, what happens when it does and what is the difference was very vague. Could somebody please shed some light on this for me

    HIV is a virus which infects a certain class of cell which itself fights infection, and renders them ineffective.

    AIDS is a syndrome defined by the presence of certain diseases or opportunistic infections which can only take hold in an immunocompromised patient (eg someone with a HIV infection). AIDS defining conditions, as they are called, happen when the type of cell affected, the CD4 cell, reaches a certain low level.

    Here's the Wikipedia bit on AIDS defining conditions:
    According to the US CDC definition, you have AIDS if you are infected with HIV and present with one of the following:

    A CD4+ T-cell count below 200 cells/µl (or a CD4+ T-cell percentage of total lymphocytes of less than 14%)

    or

    you have one of the following defining illnesses:

    * Candidiasis of bronchi, trachea, or lungs
    * Candidiasis esophageal
    * Cervical cancer (invasive)
    * Coccidioidomycosis, disseminated or extrapulmonary
    * Cryptococcosis, extrapulmonary
    * Cryptosporidiosis, chronic intestinal for longer than 1 month
    * Cytomegalovirus disease (other than liver, spleen or lymph nodes)
    * Encephalopathy (HIV-related)
    * Herpes simplex: chronic ulcer(s) (for more than 1 month); or bronchitis, pneumonitis, or esophagitis
    * Histoplasmosis, disseminated or extrapulmonary
    * Isosporiasis, chronic intestinal (for more than 1 month)
    * Kaposi's sarcoma
    * Lymphoma Burkitt's, immunoblastic or primary brain
    * Mycobacterium avium complex
    * Mycobacterium, other species, disseminated or extrapulmonary
    * Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (formerly Pneumocystis carinii)
    * Pneumonia (recurrent)
    * Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy
    * Salmonella septicemia (recurrent)
    * Toxoplasmosis of the brain
    * Tuberculosis, disseminated
    * Wasting syndrome due to HIV

    LINKY

    So basically, you can have HIV without AIDS, but not the other way around.


  • #3
    lurrrvs2sp00ge
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 215 ✭✭lurrrvs2sp00ge


    Oh ok, thanks man


  • #4
    tallaght01
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,778 ✭✭✭tallaght01


    And you're MUCH more likelt to progress quickly from HIV to AIDS if you don't get drug treatment.

    With drug treatment, and PROPER monitoring, it's thought that HIV will become a chronic illness, with current sufferers having a normal lifespan.

    But sadly, most people who have HIV don't have access to proper healthcare, so they die of AIDS, usually within 10 years of contracting the illness.


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