Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chișinău 2020
1. What is AIDS?
2. How HIV is spread?
3. Symptoms of AIDS
4. Diagnosis
5. Is there a cure for HIV?
Summary 6. Treatment
7. World AIDS Day
8. Global HIV and AIDS statistics
9. Bibliography
• AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is
the most severe phase of HIV infection. People
with AIDS have such badly damaged immune
systems that they get an increasing number of
severe illnesses, called opportunistic illnesses.
• Without treatment, people with AIDS typically
What is survive about 3 years. Common symptoms of
AIDS? AIDS include chills, fever, sweats, swollen lymph
glands, weakness, and weight loss. People are
diagnosed with AIDS when their CD4 cell count
drops below 200 cells/mm or if they develop
certain opportunistic illnesses. People with AIDS
can have a high viral load and be very infectious.
How HIV is spread?
• HIV is spread primarily
by unprotected
sex (including anal and oral sex),
contaminated blood
transfusions, hypodermic needles,
and from mother to
child during pregnancy, delivery, or
breastfeeding. Some bodily fluids,
such as saliva, sweat and tears, do
not transmit the virus. HIV is a
member of the group of viruses
known as retroviruses.
Symptoms of AIDS
Symptoms of AIDS can include:
• Rapid weight loss
• Recurring fever or profuse night sweats
• Extreme and unexplained tiredness
• Prolonged swelling of the lymph glands in the
armpits, groin, or neck
• Diarrhea that lasts for more than a week
• Sores of the mouth, anus, or genitals
• Pneumonia
• Red, brown, pink, or purplish blotches on or
under the skin or inside the mouth, nose, or
eyelids
• Memory loss, depression, and other neurologic
disorders
Diagnosis
HIV can be diagnosed through blood or saliva testing.
Available tests include:
•Antigen/antibody tests. These tests usually involve drawing
blood from a vein. Antigens are substances on the HIV virus
itself and are usually detectable — a positive test — in the
blood within a few weeks after exposure to HIV.
•Antibody tests. These tests look for antibodies to HIV in
blood or saliva. Most rapid HIV tests, including self-tests done
at home, are antibody tests. Antibody tests can take three to
12 weeks after you're exposed to become positive.
•Nucleic acid tests (NATs). These tests look for the actual
virus in your blood (viral load). They also involve blood drawn
from a vein. If you might have been exposed to HIV within
the past few weeks, your doctor may
recommend NAT. NAT will be the first test to become positive
after exposure to HIV.
Is there a cure for
HIV?
• No effective cure currently exists for HIV. But with
proper medical care, HIV can be controlled.
Treatment for HIV is called antiretroviral therapy or
ART. If people with HIV take ART as prescribed, their
viral load (amount of HIV in their blood) can become
undetectable. If it stays undetectable, they can live
long, healthy lives and have effectively no risk of
transmitting HIV to an HIV-negative partner through
sex. Before the introduction of ART in the mid-
1990s, people with HIV could progress to AIDS (the
last stage of HIV infection) in a few years. Today,
someone diagnosed with HIV and treated before the
disease is far advanced can live nearly as long as
someone who does not have HIV.
There are many medications that can control HIV and
prevent complications. These medications are called
antiretroviral therapy (ART). Everyone diagnosed
with HIV should be started on ART, regardless of their stage
of infection or complications.
ART is usually a combination of three or more medications
from several different drug classes. This approach has the