Tuesday, March 19, 2024

What Does Hiv Do To The Human Body

How Does Hiv Affect The Body

How HIV infects us: Mucous membranes, dendritic cells, and lymph nodes | Khan Academy

The human immune system involves many types of cells which guard against germs responsible for most diseases. The immune system’s most important guard cells are B-cells and T-cells, which are special white blood cells. B-cells and T-cells cooperate to fight any germ that attacks the human body.

B-cells produce particular proteins, called antibodies, that try to neutralize the invading germ. After a person recovers from an infection, these antibodies continue to circulate in the bloodstream, acting as part of the immune system’s “memory.” Immune system memory explains why a person rarely suffers a second attack from an infectious disease such as measles. If the same germ is encountered again, the antibodies will recognize and neutralize it. T-cells attack the germ directly and try to kill it.

How Is Hiv Spread Through Sex

You can get infected from sexual contact with someone who has HIV. Sexual contact that can transmit HIV includes:

  • vaginal sex
  • anal sex
  • oral sex

If you have sex, the best thing you can do to prevent HIV infection is practice “safer sex” with any partner who is not proven to be HIV negative . To do so, always use protection–this could include using a condom, dental dam, or other latex barrier, and/or . It is also important to avoid “rough sex” or other activities that might cause bleeding. If you use lube with a condom, make sure it is water-based, not oil-based. Oil-based lube causes latex condoms to break. See more ; note that, if used correctly and consistently, condoms also protect against other sexually transmitted infections and against pregnancy.

If you have unprotected sex with someone who is infected, it doesn’t mean that you will be infected, too. But there is always a chance, especially if your partner is not on effective HIV medicines. Using condoms and PrEP reduces your risk.

HIV is NOT spread by:

  • hugging or massage
  • sex toys you don’t share
  • daily living with someone who has HIV

For more information, see in the Daily Living section.

What Are Hiv And Aids

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS . HIV attacks the immune system by destroying specific white blood cells called CD4 positive T cells that are vital to fighting off infection. The resulting shortage of these cells leaves people infected with HIV vulnerable to other infections and diseases, and additional complications.

AIDS is the final stage of HIV infection. A person infected with HIV is diagnosed with AIDS when he or she has a dangerously low number of CD4+ T cells as well as one or more opportunistic infections, such as some types of pneumonia or tuberculosis, that do not typically affect people with healthy immune systems.

Although HIV infection and AIDS primarily affect the immune system, they also disturb the nervous system and can lead to a wide range of severe neurological disorders, particularly if HIV goes untreated and progresses to AIDS. Many of the most severe neurological conditions can be prevented with antiretroviral therapy. However, even individuals who receive this treatment can develop less severe neurological and cognitive difficulties.

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Can Hiv Pass From Mothers To Their Babies

Infection can pass from pregnant women living with HIV to their babies in the womb and during birth. Taking HIV medications during pregnancy and childbirth dramatically lowers the risk of a baby becoming infected with HIV.

After birth, transmission can occur through breast milk. The highest risk may be in the early months after birth. It is recommended that new mothers who are living with HIV formula-feed their babies rather than breast-feed.

If you are a woman living with HIV and you intend to become pregnant, or you find out that you have during your pregnancy, talk to your provider immediately about ways to minimize the chances that your baby will become infected, too.

How Is Hiv Spread From Person To Person

What are the Important Effects of HIV on The Body?

HIV can only be spread through specific activities. In the United States, the most common ways are:

  • Having vaginal or anal sex with someone who has HIV without using a condom or taking medicines to prevent or treat HIV. Anal sex is riskier than vaginal sex.
  • Sharing injection drug equipment , such as needles, with someone who has HIV.

Less common ways are:

  • From mother to child during pregnancy, birth, or breastfeeding. However, the use of HIV medicines and other strategies have helped lower the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to 1% or less in the United States.
  • Getting stuck with an HIV-contaminated needle or other sharp object. This is a risk mainly for health care workers. The risk is very low.

HIV is spread only in extremely rare cases by:

  • Having oral sex. But in general, the chance that an HIV-negative person will get HIV from oral sex with an HIV-positive partner is extremely low.

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How Long Does Hiv Survive Outside The Body

In general, the virus doesnât live long once itâs outside of a human body. Studies show that HIV grown in the lab, when placed on a surface, loses most of its ability to infect — 90% to 99% — within several hours. And the level of virus tested was much higher than whatâs found in bodily fluids. So contact with dried blood, semen, or other fluids poses little risk.

Tiny amounts of HIV have been found in saliva, poop, sweat, and tears. But research shows it poses little risk.

The virus canât survive in water, so you donât have to worry about swimming pools or hot tubs.

One study found HIV can live in used needles for over a month if the temperature and conditions are just right. That means sharing needles or syringes, like during drug use, raises your risk of infection.

Stages Of Hiv Infection

About a month after you get HIV, you might feel like you have the flu. This is the first stage, called primary or acute HIV infection. Symptoms include:

  • Fever
  • Fatigue
  • Swollen lymph nodes

The next stage is called clinical latency, or chronic infection. You might have no symptoms, or only mild ones, for 10 years or more.

Without treatment, as HIV keeps multiplying inside your body, youâll move into the third stage, which is AIDS. A person who has HIV is diagnosed with AIDS when they have fewer than 200 CD4 cells per cubic millimeter of blood or when they get whatâs called an AIDS-defining condition.

AIDS-defining conditions are certain cancers and illnesses called opportunistic infections.

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If You Already Have Hiv

If you are infected with HIV, you can greatly lower the risk of spreading the infection to your sex partner by starting treatment when your immune system is still healthy.

Experts recommend starting treatment as soon as you know you are infected.footnote 21

Studies have shown that early treatment greatly lowers the risk of spreading HIV to an uninfected partner.footnote 22, footnote 23

Your partner may also be able to take medicine to prevent getting infected.footnote 17 This is called pre-exposure prophylaxis .

Steps to avoid spreading HIV

If you are infected with HIV, you can greatly lower the risk of spreading the infection to your sex partner by starting treatment when your immune system is still healthy.

  • Take antiretroviral medicines. Getting treated for HIV can help prevent the spread of HIV to people who are not infected.
  • Tell your sex partner or partners about your behaviour and whether you are HIV-positive.
  • Follow safer sex practices, such as using condoms.
  • Do not donate blood, plasma, semen, body organs, or body tissues.
  • Do not share personal items, such as toothbrushes, razors, or sex toys, that may be contaminated with blood, semen, or vaginal fluids.

The Science Of Hiv And Aids

How HIV/ AIDS Affects the Human Body

Key Points

  • HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, a pathogen that works by attacking the human immune system.
  • HIV specifically targets CD4 cells, the bodys principal defenders against infection, using them to make copies of themselves.
  • Antiretroviral drugs target specific stages of the HIV lifecycle to stop HIV from replicating.

Explore this page to find out more about , , and .;

HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, a pathogen that works by attacking the human immune system. It belongs to a class of viruses called retroviruses and more specifically, a subgroup called lentiviruses, or viruses that cause disease slowly. 1

HIV cannot replicate on its own, so in order to make new copies of itself, it must infect cells of the human immune system, called CD4 cells. CD4 cells are white blood cells that play a central role in responding to infections in the body. 2

Over time, CD4 cells are killed by HIV and the bodys ability to recognise and fight some types of infection begins to decline. If HIV is not controlled by treatment, the loss of CD4 cells leads to the development of serious illnesses, or opportunistic infections. In people with normal CD4 cell levels, these infections would be recognised and cleared by the immune system. 3

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Respiratory And Cardiovascular Systems

HIV makes it hard to fight off respiratory problems such as the common cold and flu. In turn, an HIV-positive person may develop related infections, such as pneumonia.

Without treatment for HIV, advanced disease puts an HIV-positive person at an even greater risk for infectious complications, such as tuberculosis and a fungal infection called pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia .

PJP causes trouble breathing, cough, and fever.

The risk of lung cancer also increases with HIV. This is due to weakened lungs from numerous respiratory issues related to a weakened immune system.

According to available research , lung cancer is more prevalent among people with HIV compared to people without it.

People with HIV are more likely to develop high blood pressure. HIV also raises the risk of pulmonary arterial hypertension . PAH is a type of high blood pressure in the arteries that supply blood to the lungs. Over time, PAH will strain the heart and can lead to heart failure.

If a person has HIV with a low CD4 count, theyre also more susceptible to tuberculosis .

TB is an airborne bacterium that affects the lungs. Its a leading cause of death in people who have AIDS. Symptoms include chest pain and a bad cough that may contain blood or phlegm. The cough can linger for months.

Perceived Vs Documented Risk

A perceived risk is one that is based on belief rather than fact and persists despite the unlikeliness of the event ever occurring. By contrast, a documented risk is based on statistical evidence of something actually occurring. Where a perceived risk is about theory, a documented risk is about the fact.

With regards to HIV, the potential to infect does not translate into an actual risk unless the exposure satisfies four specific conditions:

  • There must be body fluids in which HIV can thrive. This includes semen, blood, vaginal fluid, and breast milk. HIV cannot thrive in parts of the body that have high acidity .
  • There must be a route by which HIV can enter the body. This includes sexual intercourse, shared needles, occupational exposure, or transmission from mother to child.
  • The virus must be able to reach vulnerable cells inside the body. This requires the rupture or deep penetration of the skin and/or the absorption of the virus through the mucosal tissues of the vagina or anus. Scrapes, abrasions, and skin prick do not offer the deep penetration needed for an infection to occur. HIV cannot pass through intact skin.
  • There must be sufficient quantities of virus in the body fluids. Saliva, sweat, and tears all either contain enzymes the inhibit HIV or have a pH hostile to HIV.

Unless all of these conditions are satisfied, an HIV infection simply cannot occur.

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What Does The Virus Do

All viruses must infect living cells to reproduce. HIV takes over certain immune system cells that are supposed to defend the body. These cells are called CD4 cells, or T cells.

When HIV takes over a CD4 cell, it turns the cell into a virus factory. It forces the cell to produce thousands of copies of the virus. These copies then infect other CD4 cells. Infected cells don’t work well and they die early. Over time, the loss of CD4 cells weakens the immune system, making it harder for the body to stay healthy.

Pop question: True or false: CD4 cells are cells in the body that fight HIV.

True

How Do You Get Or Transmit Hiv

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You can only get HIV by coming into direct contact with certain body fluids from a person with HIV who has a detectable viral load. These fluids are:

  • Blood
  • Semen and pre-seminal fluid
  • Rectal fluids
  • Vaginal fluids
  • Breast milk

For transmission to occur, the HIV in these fluids must get into the bloodstream of an HIV-negative person through a mucous membrane ; open cuts or sores; or by direct injection.

People with HIV who take HIV medicine daily as prescribed and get and keep an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting HIV to their HIV-negative partners.

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What Does Hiv Do To The Body

One of the effects of HIV on the human body is that it weakens the immune system and exposes the body to diseases and infections which it would normally fight off.

One of the effects of HIV on the human body is that it weakens the immune system and exposes the body to diseases and infections which it would normally fight off.

HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus and if left untreated can lead to AIDS which is fatal. There are different ways in which you can get HIV, namely unprotected sex with an infected partner, mother to child during birth, transfusion of infected blood, and the use of infected syringes. HIV can go undiagnosed for an extended period of time and you would probably have to do specific tests like ELISA and Western Blot for a conclusive diagnosis. These tests detect antibodies that the body makes when infected with HIV. A person infected with HIV may not show any visible symptoms of the infection and can appear healthy for years.

Donor Testing And Significance

In Germany, both HIV antibody and HIV NAT testing are mandatory.

2.3.1 HIV Antibody Testing

Initial testing of a donation is carried out with antibody screening test systems approved in Europe according to the German Medicinal Products Act in connection with the In Vitro Diagnostics Directive . Tests used in Germany recognise antibodies to all known HIV-1 groups and HIV-2. Reactive screening test results must be followed by a serologic confirmation test or a NAT assay. An additional second blood sample has to be investigated for confirmation of an HIV infection . Until the results are clarified, the donation is separated and should be preserved for additional investigations. The donor is deferred until the final results are available . According to current knowledge, the vast majority of reactive HIV antibody screening test results of blood donors are non-specific, i.e. false-positive, and have other causes, e.g., immune complexes in the specimen .

2.3.2 Detecting HIV RNA by NAT

The diagnostic window period, which is between 3 and 6 weeks for antibody screening tests, can be shortened by application of NAT. Depending on the level of viraemia, the sensitivity of the assay used and the infecting HIV, an infection can be detected as early as about 11 days post infection . The HIV NAT enables sensitive detection also of non-HIV-1 M:B. Reference materials for the detection of different HIV-1 genotypes are available .

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Infection And Infectious Diseases

HIV is able to enter the body via intact mucous membranes, eczematous or injured skin or mucosa and by parenteral inoculation. When transmitted by sexual contact, HIV attaches first to dendritic cells or macrophages/monocytes; HIV using CCR-5 as a co-receptor is then preferentially replicated . HIV is taken up by macrophages and replicated as shown for M cells in the mucosa . HIV exposure to blood cells can result in the direct infection of T helper cells and the transmission of R5 and X4 viruses . As mentioned above, 1 HID is equivalent to approximately 500-1,000 HIV particles, with a higher dose required for infection via mucous membranes compared to infection via the bloodstream, e.g. by needle stick injury. The majority of new HIV infections are still transmitted sexually. Another epidemiologically relevant route is parenteral administration of drugs and also snorting of drugs with epistaxis.

Transmission of HIV via blood or transplanted organs, including bone, is possible from about days 5-6 after infection of the donor. Mother-to-child transmission has been demonstrated from the 12th week of gestation, but transmission occurs predominantly in the final trimester and particularly shortly before or during birth . HIV can be transmitted via breast milk .

How Is Hiv Recognized

How Long Can HIV Virus Survive Outside Human Body?

Doctors use laboratory tests to confirm HIV infection. The Elisa and Western Blot analyses identify people who have been exposed to HIV. These tests determine if the blood contains particular antibodies that result from contact with the virus. They do not identify who among a group of infected individuals will develop the disease. The presence of antibodies or HIV markers means the person has been infected with HIV but no one can predict when and if they will get AIDS related symptoms.

Doctors diagnose AIDS by blood tests and the presence of specific illnesses such as pneumocystis carinii pneumonia or Kaposi’s sarcoma. These diseases overcome the weakened immune system and are responsible for the high death rate among AIDS patients.

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