Are Hiv And Aids The Same
HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. If someone has HIV, it means that they have been diagnosed with the HIV infection. AIDS however, is the most advanced or final stage of the HIV infection and is characterized by:
- A damaged immune system with low CD4 cells counts in the blood.
- High HIV load in the blood.
- Opportunistic infections: These are infections that occur more frequently or are more severe in people with weakened immune systems than in people with healthy immune systems.
- In the absence of treatment, people with AIDS rarely survive beyond three years.
The symptoms of AIDS are:
When Should My Child See A Healthcare Provider
Keeping your child’s healthcare appointments is very important. You will also need to know when to bring your child in for care when your child is getting sick. Your child should see a healthcare provider if he or she:
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Has a fever of 100.4°F or higher, or as directed by your child’s healthcare provider
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Has shortness of breath or a cough
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Has a change in bowel movements
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Has a skin rash including diaper rash, sores on the skin or in the mouth, or white patches in the mouth
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Has behavioral changes
Apple Cider Vinegar Supplements Distilled Water
2 User Reviews
I have been HIV positive for three years now. The doctors have been pushing me to start anti-viral drug therapy. I have resisted since my T-cells have remained over 700 and viral around 60,000. I have never felt healthier. I work out 6 days a week, grow my own organic veggies, sleep 8 hours a night, do not smoke or do drugs, and drink very little booze. With the help of internet research, I drink two raw organic apple cider vinegar drinks a day, take Selenium, alot of mult-vitamins/minerals and drink only distilled water. This has worked for me, perhaps this will help some of you.
Apple Cider Vinegar, Supplements, Distilled Water
I too have been positive for 3 years… Back when I first tested positive the docs wanted me to start on the meds urgently, however I didn’t see the point in taking extremely toxic medication on 09/17/2009
Warning
I am dying from AIDS. I was healthy with it since 1993. Then 4 months ago I began to drink lemon juice. This activated the virus mycoplasma and my skin began to turn purple. You can live with hiv for a long time if you stay away from citric acid, this is how it grows.
All these cures are toxic and useless.
Eat chicken soup and stay away from citrus and sugar fruit and you will be healthy. But it is the lemon juice that caused my body to break down. I would stay away from Vitamin C also, acidifies the body, no matter what they say. I am living proof.
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Rare Case Of Woman’s Body Ridding Itself Of Hiv
Health editor, BBC News online
A woman from Argentina appears to have rid herself of HIV without drugs or treatment – the second documented case of its kind in the world.
Doctors believe the patient’s immune system cleared the virus on its own.
Tests on more than a billion of her cells found no viable trace of the infection, Archives of Internal Medicine reports.
If this process could be harnessed, it might offer a way to wipe out or effectively cure HIV, experts say.
Find Needle Exchange And Harm Reduction Programs
You can get free sterile harm-reduction supplies at over 35 needle exchange programs and over 370 access points across Ontario. Through these programs you can get:
- safer-injection equipment including:
Through these programs, you can also:
- safely dispose of both injection and crack smoking equipment
- get condoms
- get education and information
- get referrals and counseling
Find the closest needle-exchange and harm-reduction program by contacting a public health unit near you or call the AIDS and Sexual Health Info Line toll free at 1-800-668-2437.
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Womans Own Immune System Has Possibly Cured Her Of Hiv
A woman in Argentina has become only the second documented person whose own immune system may have cured her of HIV.
Researchers have dubbed the 30-year-old mother, who was first diagnosed with HIV in 2013, the Esperanza patient, after the town in Argentina where she lives. In English, esperanza means hope.
I enjoy being healthy, the Esperanza patient, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the stigma associated with the virus, told NBC News in Spanish over email. I have a healthy family. I dont have to medicate, and I live as though nothing has happened. This already is a privilege.
This is really the miracle of the human immune system that did it.
Dr. Xu Yu, Ragon Institute
The co-authors of the study, which was in the Annals of Internal Medicine, said they believe their findings will indeed bring hope to the estimated 38 million people globally living with the virus and to the ever-expanding HIV-cure research field. The case serves as one of two proofs of concept that a so-called sterilizing cure of the virus is apparently possible through natural immunity.
This is really the miracle of the human immune system that did it, said Dr. Xu Yu, a viral immunologist at the Ragon Institute in Boston, who in partnership with Dr. Natalia Laufer, a physician scientist at INBIRS Institute in Buenos Aries, Argentina, led the exhaustive search for any viable HIV in the womans body.
Natural Products And Medical Discoveries
The study of natural products in drug discovery is not a modern concept. In fact many of the most successful medical therapeutics were originally found in nature. There are reports of ancient Egyptians using moldy bread to treat infections, which may have led to the discovery of Penicillin in 1928., Secreted products of the fungus Penicillium chrysogenum prevented bacterial colony growth and led to the development of Penicillin, which was eventually clinically available in the 1940’s. As early as 400 BC the use of willow bark to alleviate pain was reported. The active compound was discovered in the 1800’s to be salicin, which was later modified with an acetyl group to create aspirin. The bark of the cinchona tree had been used as far back as the 1600’s to cure malaria, and was purified into the drug chloroquine in the 1940’s. The active component of the anticancer drug Taxol is paclitaxel, derived from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree., Paclitaxel was discovered as part of a screen for anticancer natural plant products in the 1960’s.
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What Do We Know About The Treatment
This week at a Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Colorado, United States. researchers described the case of a 60-year-old African American woman who was diagnosed with an HIV infection in 2013 was started on the standard HIV treatment regimen of anti-retroviral treatment therapy consisting of tenofovir, emtricitabine and raltegravir. She was also later diagnosed with leukemia in 2017
In that year she received cord blood, or embryonic stem cells, from a donor with a rare mutation that naturally blocks the HIV virus from infecting cells. She was also given blood stem cells, or adult stem cells, from a relative. The adult stem cells boosted the patients immunity and possibly helped the cord blood cells fully integrate with the ladys immune system.
A little over three years after the transplant, the lady discontinued the ART and today more than 14 months down, her doctors report that she has no sign of HIV in her blood and also has no detectable antibodies to the virus.
Embryonic stem cells are potentially able to grow into any kind of cell and hence their appeal as therapy, though there is no explanation for why this mode of treatment appeared to be more effective.
Myth : Im Undetectable And Cant Pass On Hiv Does This Mean Im Cured
Some people who adhere to treatment well are able to achieve a viral load so low that it is classed as undetectable. This also means they cant pass HIV on to others. This is great progress, however, if youve recently been given an undetectable diagnosis this doesnt mean that youre cured, as HIV is still present in your body.
This means that if you stop taking treatment then your viral load can increase affecting your long-term health and making HIV transmittable again. You can read more about what it means to be undetectable here.
Read Also: How Long Before Hiv Turns Into Aids
What Is The Prevalence Of Hiv/aids In India
As per the India HIV Estimation 2019 report, the estimated adult HIV prevalence trend has been declining in India since the epidemics peak in the year 2000 and has been stabilising in recent years. In 2019, HIV prevalence among adult males was estimated at 0.24% and among adult females at 0.20% of the population.
There were 23.48 lakh Indians living with HIV in 2019. Maharashtra had the maximum at 3.96 lakh followed by Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
Indias National Aids Control Organisation says that ART is freely available to all those who require and there are deputed centres across the country where they can be availed from.
/5how Was It Possible
The findings, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, delves deep into what led to such a ‘medical miracle’.
As per the researchers, an infected person makes and places copies of its genome into the DNA or genetic material of cells, building something known as a viral reservoir, which helps hide the viruses from the anti-HIV drugs and body’s immune responses. While an Anti-retroviral therapy can prevent the virus from replicating any further, it cannot eliminate the already existing viruses in the viral reservoir.
However, experts claim that some patients also called the ‘elite controllers’ can somehow tame the virus without the aid of drugs or transplants.
The Esperanza patient is among the few, or more special, since she has managed to eliminate any sign of HIV from her body. Researchers say that the woman has achieved “complete clearance of all replication-competent HIV-1 proviruses during natural infection”.
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What Is An Hiv Cure
There are two different visions of a potential HIV cure: treatment-free remission and viral eradication.
Treatment-free remission means the virus is controlled without the need for ART drugs, which a person has to take every day for life. Millions of people who have HIV canât afford ART, so other treatments are needed. This idea of an HIV cure is also called a functional cure.
Treatment-free remission means that youâd:
- Live a healthy life thatâs of normal length
- Not have to take ART or any other HIV-related drugs to keep the virus under control
- Not be able to pass on HIV to others
Many therapies are being studied as a way to control HIV without the need for daily ART. These include antibody therapies and therapeutic vaccines. They donât prevent infection, but stimulate your own immune system to fight it.
Viral eradication is another way of looking at a potential cure. Itâs also known as a sterilizing cure. Scientists believe it would take a two-part treatment to wipe out HIV in a personâs body. The first part would involve drugs that make the cells in the HIV reservoir multiply and express proteins that are a like a signal to your immune system. The second part would include drugs that detect those protein signals, then seek out and kill the virus.
Other types of drugs that may be able to seek out and kill HIV include histone deacetylase inhibitors, protein kinase activators, latency securing agents, and immunotoxins. These drugs may be used in combination.
No Longer A Death Sentence: How Living With Hiv Has Changed
HIV has proved extraordinarily difficult to eradicate from the body because it will infect certain long-lived immune cells, known collectively as the viral reservoir, that can spend lengthy periods in a resting state. This keeps the viral DNA, known as provirus, that is encoded into those cells under the radar of standard antiretroviral treatment, which can only attack the virus in infected cells when they are actively churning out new copies of HIV.
Yu was also the lead author of a paper in Nature in August 2020 that analyzed 64 people who, like the Argentine woman, are so-called elite controllers of HIV. These are among the estimated 1 in 200 people with HIV whose own immune systems are somehow able to suppress the viruss replication to very low levels without antiretrovirals.
That studys authors found that these individuals immune systems appeared to have preferentially destroyed cells that harbored HIV capable of producing viable new copies of the virus. Left over were only infected cells in which the viral genetic code was spliced into a kind of genetic dead zone regions of the cellular DNA that were too distant from the levers that propel viral replication.
One member of that cohort, Loreen Willenberg, a now-67-year-old Californian who was diagnosed with HIV in 1992, stood out as having an immune system that had apparently vanquished the virus entirely. Even after sequencing billions of her cells, scientists could not find any intact viral sequences.
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What Are Some Challenges I Might Face Taking My Hiv Medication Every Day
Taking medication every day can be difficult. That is why it is important to understand some of the challenges you may face and to think through how you might address them before they happen. For example, remembering when to take your medication can be complicated. Some medication regimens involve taking several pills every daywith or without foodor before or after other medications. Making a schedule of when and how to take your medicines can be helpful. Or ask your health care provider about the availability of multiple drugs combined into one pill.
Other factors can make it difficult to take your HIV medications every day, including:
Your health care provider will help you identify barriers to keeping up with your HIV medication regimen and ways to address those barriers. Understanding issues that can make keeping up with your HIV medication regimen difficult will help you and your health care provider select the best treatment for you.
Tell your health care provider right away if youre having taking your HIV medication every day. Together you can identify the reasons why youre skipping medications and make a plan to address those reasons. Joining a peer support group of others taking HIV medication, or enlisting the support of family and friends, can also help you.
Topics
How To Get Tested For Hiv
Although there is currently no cure for HIV/AIDS, Ontario offers a number of testing and treatment programs. These programs help people with HIV/AIDS live for many years after contracting the disease.
All doctors, nurse practitioners and midwives in Ontario can order HIV tests. There are three types of tests:
- standard HIV testing: a sample of your blood is taken and sent to a public health laboratory
- anonymous testing: the test is ordered for you and your results are provided using a code known only to you. Anonymous HIV testing is offered at 50 locations in communities across Ontario
- point of care testing: your blood is tested while you wait. If you test negative for HIV/AIDS, you will learn your results immediately. If you test reactive, your blood sample will be sent for standard testing
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Home Remedies To Prevent Hiv And Treat Its Symptoms
HIV is a sexually transmitted disease which affects the immune system and can significantly decrease your life expectancy if left unmanaged. Theres currently no cure for HIV which means that prevention is far better than trying to manage your symptoms. Thats why weve created this article about home remedies to prevent HIV and treat its symptoms.
If you are diagnosed with HIV you should speak to your doctor about medical treatment as herbal or home remedies alone wont be enough to treat your condition fully, but there are remedies that can help reduce your symptoms, side effects of treatment, and slow down the progression of the disease, helping you to live a longer, healthier life.
Myth : Having Sex With A Virgin Will Cleanse Hiv
The virgin cleansing myth is the belief sex with a virgin girl can cure men of HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. The myth is old and completely untrue it is believed to have begun circulating in 16th century Europe, when people were first starting to get syphilis and gonorrhoea, but it is now a popular HIV-cure-myth in sub-Saharan Africa.
Having sex with a virgin will not cure HIV, it will just put them at risk of being infected with the virus if protection isnt used. For those under the age of consent, or those who have not consented to sex, this is also a form of sexual violence and is a criminal offence. Get the facts about staying healthy on treatment when living with HIV
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Have There Been Any Breakthroughs
One reason to hope for a cure for HIV is that experimental treatments seem to have worked in a handful of people already.
The Berlin Patient: In 2008, a man with HIV named Timothy Ray Brown was effectively cured while living in Germany. Researchers treated his blood with a stem cell transplant for leukemia, but the treatment also cured his HIV. His stem cell donor carried a mutation of an HIV-related gene called CCR5. This mutation makes a person almost completely resistant to infection. Brown was the only person to be cured of HIV until 2019, when two others were effectively cured with a similar stem cell therapy.
Visconti Cohort: In 2010, a baby born with HIV in Mississippi began ART soon after birth and was in remission for 2 years after they stopped, but the virus did come back. A trial called the Visconti Cohort studied 20 people with HIV in France. They also started ART within weeks of infection. They were able to stop taking the drugs and still have low levels of HIV years later. Another trial of 15 children with HIV in Thailand had similar results. Itâs important to remember that these were controlled studies if you have HIV, you should never stop ART without talking to your doctor.
These are positive signs, but the studies are very small. We need more research on these potential cures to be able to develop treatments that would safely work on many people, not just a small number.