REACH - Template

What You Should Know About HIV/AIDS	HIV/AIDS Dictionary
When is AIDS diagnosed?	HIV/AIDS Questions & Answers
Factors Influencing the Spread of HIV/AIDS

What You Should Know About HIV/AIDS?

HIV/AIDS – The Real Deal

Most of the people around the world who have been reported with a diagnosis of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) got infected with HIV through sexual contact. The next most common way that people have become infected is through sharing needles.

“HIV” (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and “AIDS” (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) mean two different things. “HIV” refers to the virus that causes AIDS. When people are said to be “HIV-positive” it means the virus has been detected in their bodies. Infected people may not feel sick. When the HIV disease process becomes more advanced, and certain conditions are diagnosed, then the person is said to “have AIDS.” The amount of time varies between when a person is first infected with HIV until he or she is diagnosed with AIDS; it can be as little as a few months, or it may take 10 years or longer.

You can’t tell just by looking at yourself or someone else whether or not they have HIV. Even when people feel good and show no physical signs, they can still be “HIV-positive.” The only way you can be sure if you’ve been infected with HIV is to get tested. If a person is infected, early diagnosis and medical care can help a person stay healthy and can lengthen the time before AIDS develops.

HIV can be transmitted through different paths of infection such as:

Unprotected vaginal, anal and oral sex.

Direct blood contact, which may occur through needle sharing, transfusions, accidents in health care settings, or certain blood products.

Mother to baby; before or during birth or through breast milk.

HIV can be transmitted from an infected person to another through infectious fluids such as

Blood

Semen (including pre-seminal fluid)

Vaginal secretions

HIV can also be transmitted through breast milk-expressed through feeding, in limited circumstances where there is exposure to large quantities.

To become infected with HIV, an individual must be exposed to the virus for it to gain entry into the bloodstream. HIV is not spread through casual contact, such as shaking hands or hugging.

HIV is not transmitted through saliva, urine, tears, sweat, feces or vomit.

Saliva is NOT considered to be infectious. The only time saliva would pose a risk would be if it had blood present in it. There are no documented cases of HIV transmission through saliva. There is a protein in the mouth that attaches itself to the surface of blood cells and blocks infection by HIV that appears to be present in the mucous membrane in the mouth at a level sufficient enough to reduce the concentration of HIV in saliva to non-infectious levels. Urine and Tears are NOT considered infectious. While HIV has been found in urine and tears, it is not concentrated in an amount sufficient for transmission. Sweat, Feces and Vomit are NOT considered infectious. HIV has never been found in these materials. The only possible risk would be if there was blood present.

When is AIDS diagnosed?

These are the conditions that must be true for a person to be diagnosed with AIDS, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). First, test result is “positive” for HIV (shows viral infection has occurred). Then one or more of the following must occur, which show that the immune system is now severely damaged: (1) the CD4+ cell count is less than 200 (a normal CD4+ cell count in a healthy adult is between 800-1500 mm³), or (2) the T-cell count is less than 14% of all lymphocytes, or (3) the person is diagnosed with one or more of the “opportunistic infections” that are strongly associated with AIDS.

Because the immune system is breaking down, a person who has HIV is more likely to become infected with one or more of the over 25 opportunistic infections and conditions that are associated with AIDS and that can eventually cause death. Diseases such as Tuberculosis (TB), Chronic Herpes Simplex, Recurrent Pneumonia, Wasting Syndrome, Kaposi's sarcoma, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, Toxoplasmosis of brain, along with many other infections, are called “opportunistic infections” because they take the opportunity to attack a person’s body when it is weakened and cannot fight back.

There is no cure for HIV or AIDS. A prescribed “drug cocktail” is available to people with HIV, that can stop people them from becoming ill for many years and increase their life expectancy. Those drugs need to be taken every day for the rest of the person’s life. Unfortunately, most of the medications currently available to treat HIV/AIDS have undesirable side effects such as fatigue, anemia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and changes in body fat distribution (lipodystrophy), among others.

Factors Influencing the Spread of HIV

HIV/AIDS Is Preventable, So Why Is It Still Spreading at an Alarming Rate?

AIDS is a disease that is both incurable and preventable. So why is HIV still spreading at such an alarming rate? A wide and complex range of factors work together to create an environment where people are not protecting themselves, hence HIV/AIDS continues to spread quickly. Yes, HIV is spread when individuals act in unsafe ways. But the causes go far beyond a simple matter of individual choice. Community values and expectations, judgmental attitudes about sexual behavior and drug use, the political will to provide needed resources – these are some of the factors that affect people’s ability to make positive health changes in their lives.

HIV is often presented as a moral problem, rather than as a health crisis that is killing hundreds in our communities and devastating the families they leave behind. We have created and tolerated an atmosphere of shame and dishonor – a stigma – around having HIV/AIDS. Long established patterns of racism may add to that stigma, when disease rates are higher in minority communities. All this makes it more likely that people hesitate to get tested, or to get help when they find out they have been infected. Public policy and priorities also impact the social environment and determine how, where, and how much of our resources will be used against a problem. Ongoing issues of low socioeconomic status in minority communities and of poor access to high quality medical care can lead to people ignoring health concerns altogether.

On an individual basis, these and other social factors are often at work when someone just seems not to care. Some people have an “it can’t happen to me” attitude and feel invincible. They are unwilling or unable to look at the ways they may be putting themselves and others at risk of getting HIV. A steady stream of public health education is vitally needed to bring accurate and practical HIV prevention information to people of all ages in our communities. But cultural and religious values, beliefs and standards can stand as barriers that keep the messages from getting through. There is an urgent need to increase our understanding of how all these factors build on each other. From there, our communities’ can face HIV together, developing culturally effective ways to prevent further spread of HIV.