AIDS - causes and signs of AIDS

Stages

This disease is transmitted through blood, sperm, vaginal secretions, and a very small amount of the virus is found in saliva. Therefore, this disease is most often transmitted sexually, or through direct contact of the patient's blood with the blood of a healthy person. AIDS is the terminal stage of the virus's development, which usually occurs years after infection.

After infection with a sufficient amount of viral material, the same thing happens as with other viral infections. The virus infects healthy cells of the body, turning them into mini-factories for the production of its own kind. All viruses, which are a non-cellular form of life, behave this way (and immunologists and infectious disease specialists are still arguing whether a creature that acquires the qualities inherent in this status only through interaction with a living cell can be considered alive).

But this virus has its own characteristics that make AIDS an incurable disease. The fact is that the ability to mutate in this type of virus is so pronounced that it gives rise to a huge variety of its forms and variations. It has not yet been possible to find an effective medicine. The virus is too changeable. Even within one organism, it is constantly changing, developing. And it increasingly destroys the immune system, the cells of which are its main targets.

How quickly HIV will progress to its terminal stage depends on many factors:

• the age of the patient - older people have less resistance, as a result of which the virus progresses much more actively. Infants infected with HIV do not have formed immunity at all, so AIDS develops at a simply terrifying speed in the absolute majority of cases;
• cross infection. Two strains of the virus combine in one organism upon contact, strengthen each other, mutate, which accelerates the approach of the terminal stage;
• the destruction of human health by other viruses and, in general, its weakening by diseases also accelerates the development of HIV;
• lifestyle also plays an important role in maintaining the resistance of the human immune system;
• although HIV is an incurable disease, modern therapeutic methods of treatment can delay the onset of AIDS for many years or even decades.

Causes

It is worth noting that there is a certain threshold amount of the virus required for infection. It is not possible to establish this limit precisely, since it fluctuates depending on individual factors. But up to a certain threshold, the immune system is able to cope with the virus. Unfortunately, in most cases of unprotected sex and in all cases of transfusion of infected blood, the amount of virus is more than enough to cause infection.

HIV is classified as a venereal disease because the most common type of transmission of this disease is still sexual. However, infection can also occur under other specific conditions, such as transfusion of infected blood or using the same syringe with a sick person.

Symptoms

The disease often proceeds completely asymptomatically at first, or with minor signs, such as swelling of the lymph nodes. At the AIDS stage, signs of the disease associated with the complete destruction of the human immune system appear. As a result, the symptoms of this disease are as follows:

• various lung infections, including tuberculosis are one of the most common consequences of the disease;
• gastrointestinal tract infections, in particular, damage to the esophagus by both fungi and other (non-HIV) viruses;
• infections that destroy the central and peripheral nervous system of a person, for example, toxoplasmosis;
• due to the fact that immunity is practically destroyed in AIDS, nothing fights the degenerated cells of the body itself, therefore, patients with this disease very often suffer from malignant tumors;
• unusual infections can be singled out as a separate group, with which a healthy or even weakened, but functioning immune system would cope if not for AIDS.

Diagnostics

AIDS is diagnosed by means of a specific blood test. In fact, in order to monitor your own health, it is worth visiting an infectious disease specialist at regular intervals, without waiting for the symptoms of the disease to appear.

Treatment

The terminal stage of HIV is incurable. Official medicine at its current level of development is not able to overcome the virus that has already taken hold in the body. However, therapeutic methods have been developed that prevent the virus from taking hold (this therapy must be used soon after the expected contact with the infected person); as well as maintenance therapy, which can delay the transition of HIV to AIDS for many years or even decades. Therefore, if you suspect this disease, you should make an appointment with an infectious disease specialist as soon as possible.

Prevention

The only effective way to prevent this disease is a healthy lifestyle. Safe sex, no promiscuous sexual relations, control over what kind of blood can be taken for transfusion, and the use of disposable syringes only once - this is prevention of the disease, and an effective one at that.