What is the difference between AIDS and HIV?!


Question: What is the difference between AIDS and HIV?
My daughter is being asked this in an essay.

Answers:

HIV is the virus, which can be transmitted by passing bodily fluids from an infected person to another.

AIDS starts when the HIV has developed enough in the body so you start having typical illnesses due to the crisis in the immune system such as night fevers, weight loss, mouth sores, amongst many others. It usually take a couple of years to develop AIDS since the HIV is contracted if there's no treatment; sometimes it takes longer, sometimes it takes less time.

If you start treatment after you develop AIDS, you are more likely to get ill continuously. That's why an early diagnosis is very important.

Not every person living with HIV has to develop AIDS.



HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.
H

-

Human: because this virus can only infect human beings.
I

-

Immuno-deficiency: because the effect of the virus is to create a deficiency, a failure to work properly, within the body’s immune system.
V

-

Virus: because this organism is a virus, which means one of its characteristics is that it is incapable of reproducing by itself. It reproduces by taking over the machinery of the human cell.





A

-

Acquired: because it’s a condition one must acquire or get infected with; not something transmitted through the genes
I

-

Immune: because it affects the body’s immune system, the part of the body which usually works to fight off germs such as bacteria and viruses
D

-

Deficiency: because it makes the immune system deficient (makes it not work properly)
S

-

Syndrome: because someone with AIDS may experience a wide range of different diseases and opportunistic infections.



* Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is transmitted through contact with a body fluid that contains the virus.
* HIV destroys certain types of white blood cells, weakening the body's defenses against infections and cancers.
* When people are first infected, symptoms of fever, rashes, swollen lymph nodes, and fatigue may last a few days to several weeks.
* Many infected people remain well for more than a decade, but within about 10 years, about half of people become ill and develop AIDS, defined by the presence of serious infections and cancers. Eventually, most untreated people develop AIDS.
* Blood tests to check for HIV antibody and to measure the amount of HIV virus can confirm the diagnosis.
* Antiretroviral drugs, usually two or three taken together, can slow the replication of HIV but cannot kill HIV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV
http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/sec17/c…
http://www.medicinenet.com/human_immunod…
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hiv-aid…
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/…
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/…



Let's keep in simple.

HIV is the virus that causes a syndrome known as AIDS.
Having HIV does not mean one necessarily has AIDS.




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