The truth that stares in our face is that "HIV infection is now common in India, exactly what the prevalence is, is not really known, but it can be stated without any fear of being wrong that infection is widespread. It is spreading rapidly into those segments that society in India does not recognize as being at risk. AIDS is coming out of the closet." It would help if we knew how to deal with it more effectively so that we could take precautions.

Did you know?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 million to 1.2 million U.S. residents are living with HIV infection, about one-quarter of whom are unaware of their infection. Each year, there are about 40,000 new infections. Of these, about 70 percent are among men and 30 percent among women.In India the Indian National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) estimates that in 2005 the number of people living with HIV was 5.21 million, which is about 0.91% of our population. These of course refer to officially reported numbers - the actual numbers are likely to be much higher. This data suggests that India has a higher number of people living with HIV than any other country in the world.

What does "AIDS" mean?

 AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome:

Acquired means you can get infected with it.

Immune Deficiency means a weakness in the body's system that fights diseases.

Syndrome means a group of health problems that make up a disease.

AIDS is caused by a virus called HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. If you get infected with HIV, your body will try to fight the infection.

So what happens is I am HIV positive?    

You might not know if you are infected by HIV. Some people get fever, headache, sore muscles and joints, stomach ache, swollen lymph glands, or a skin rash for one or two weeks. Most people think it's the flu. Some people have no symptoms.

The virus will multiply in your body for a few weeks or even months before your immune system responds. When your immune system responds, it starts to make antibodies. When this happens, you will test positive for HIV.

You would sometimes develop flu-like symptoms, and people can often recover from the flu but that does not mean that the HIV is out of your body. In fact, during this time, HIV is damaging your immune system.

So when your immune system collapses, viruses, parasites, fungi and bacteria that usually don't cause any problems can make you very sick. You get to see them as fevers, night sweats, diarrhea, or swollen lymph nodes and these problems will last more than a few days, and probably continue for several weeks.

Without treatment, the immune system will most likely go down. And over time the disease of HIV becomes AIDS. This happens when the immune system is seriously damaged and not able to resist any kind of infection. These are called OPPORTUNISTIC INFECTIONS and in spite of treatment for the illnesses you are unable to restore the system back to function as before. So the person not just suffers from infection after infection but is unable to recover soon from the illnesses.

Being HIV positive or having HIV is not the same as having AIDS 

Many people are HIV-positive but don't get sick for many years. As HIV disease continues, it slowly wears down the immune system.

In the mid-1990s, AIDS was a leading cause of death. Largely because the condition of AIDS was not understood but also because the person is unable to recover from the opportunistic infections, and mind you there could be multiples of them. So, often doctors would end up treating the person for the symptoms displayed and newer and newer illnesses surfaced, making the person more and more weak until he succumbed to it. However, newer treatments have cut the AIDS death rate significantly and also been able to maintain the person at the level of being HIV+ and not allowing the immune system to collapse completely to get to the condition of full blown HIV infection or AIDS.

The only possibility is to continue to maintain this state as there is no cure for AIDS. There are drugs that can slow down the HIV virus, and slow down the damage to your immune system. There is no way to "clear" the HIV out of your body.

Other drugs can prevent or treat opportunistic infections (OIs). In most cases, these drugs work very well. The newer, stronger antiretroviral medications (ARVs) have also helped reduce the rates of most OIs. A few OIs, however, are still very difficult to treat.

How do you get AIDS?

You don't actually "get" AIDS. You could get infected with HIV, and later you might develop AIDS. You can get infected with HIV from anyone who's infected, even if they don't look sick and even if they haven't tested HIV-positive yet. The blood, vaginal fluid, semen, and breast milk of people infected with HIV has enough of the virus in it to infect other people.

Most people get the HIV virus by:

having sex with an infected person

sharing a needle (shooting drugs) with someone who's infected

Getting a transfusion of infected blood used to be a way people got AIDS, but now the blood supply is screened very carefully and the risk is extremely low.

There are no documented cases of HIV being transmitted by tears or saliva, but it is possible to be infected with HIV through oral sex or in rare cases through deep kissing, especially if you have open sores in your mouth or bleeding gums.

The most common opportunistic infections that people contract while having AIDS are:

• Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP): a lung infection

• Kaposi's sarcoma (KS): a skin cancer

• Cytomegalovirus (CMV): an infection that usually affects the eyes; and

• Candida: a fungal infection that can cause thrush (a white film in your mouth) or infections in your throat or vagina

Watch out for these, as they could be a way to check out if you have contracted AIDS.

The other common symptoms that persons infected with AIDS experience include serious weight loss, brain tumors, and other health problems. Without treatment, these opportunistic infections would end up being fatal.

Yet it has been found that AIDS is different in every infected person. Some people die a few months after getting infected, while others live fairly normal lives for many years, even after they "officially" have AIDS. A few HIV-positive people stay healthy for many years even without taking antiretroviral medications.