Contents:
- Medical Video: Medical Animation: HIV and AIDS
- How does the HIV virus attack the immune system?
- 4 Stages of HIV infection
- 1. Stage of acute HIV infection
- 2. Clinical latent stage
- 3. HIV symptomatic infection
- 4. AIDS
Medical Video: Medical Animation: HIV and AIDS
HIV attacks and kills important cells in the immune system. People who are infected with HIV may not show any symptoms for years. However, unless treated, the number of cells in the immune system will continue to decline. Without these cells (which function to kill cells that have been infected with germs), various dangerous diseases will appear.
How does the HIV virus attack the immune system?
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infects cells from the immune system. HIV causes AIDS because the virus destroys important immune cells namely CD4 T cells, but how exactly these cells are killed is not known exactly.
Every day, your body produces millions of CD4 T cells to help maintain immunity and fight off viruses and germs. Once HIV is in your body, the virus can make continuous copies, increasing the ability to kill CD4 T cells. Then, infected cells dominate healthy T cells.
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4 Stages of HIV infection
HIV infection is usually divided into 4 stages, depending on how the effects of HIV on your immune system: acute primary infection, clinical latent infection, symptomatic HIV infection and the development of HIV into AIDS.
1. Stage of acute HIV infection
Within 2-4 weeks after HIV infection, many people (but not all) experience flu-like symptoms, which are the body's natural response to HIV infection, such as fever, swollen glands, sore throat, rash, muscle and joint pain, pain and pain head. During the initial period of this infection, large amounts of the virus are produced in the body. Your body responds by producing HIV antibodies and cytotoxic lymphocytes (killer T cells that search for and destroy viruses or bacteria). Thus, HIV levels in the blood will decrease greatly, and the number of CD4 + T cells will soar.
During the stage of acute HIV infection, you are at high risk of transmitting HIV to sexual partners and drug users because HIV levels in the bloodstream are very high. For this reason, it is very important to reduce the risk of transmission.
2. Clinical latent stage
"Latency" is a period in which the virus lives or develops in the human body without producing symptoms or only mild symptoms, because the infection does not cause symptoms or other complications. The second stage of HIV infection has an average duration of 10 years for people who are not on antiretroviral treatment (ART). If you are on ART, you can live with clinical latency for decades because care helps keep the virus.
Although there is very little in the blood, HIV is very active in the body's lymph system. If you have HIV and are not on ART, the number of viruses will start to increase and your CD4 count will decrease. If this happens, you can begin to have constitutional symptoms of HIV once the virus levels increase in your body.
However, people with HIV remain infected and can transmit HIV to others in this phase.
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3. HIV symptomatic infection
Over time, HIV destroys your immune system. If the number of viruses continues to increase to a higher level, the immune system will deteriorate. Your health condition reaches a more serious stage. Symptoms of this stage of HIV infection include rapid weight loss, memory loss, relapsing fever, and diarrhea lasting more than a week. If anti-HIV drug treatment does not work, or if someone does not take care, the immune system will begin to deteriorate rapidly.
In the meantime, opportunistic infections will also increase. This infection will not be a problem in people with normal immune systems, but in people with weak immune systems, infection can be very dangerous. The infection can be cured, but the development of the disease cannot be stopped.
4. AIDS
AIDS is the stage of HIV infection that occurs when the immune system is severely damaged and you are prone to opportunistic infections. The number of CD4 + T cells decreases, and the number of viruses increases significantly. If a person's CD4 + T cell count falls below 200 cells per cubic millimeter of blood and the patient is diagnosed with stage 4 HIV-related conditions (such as tuberculosis, cancer, and pneumonia),
Once HIV develops into AIDS, patients are more likely to experience death. Without treatment, people who experience AIDS usually last around 3 years. Once you have dangerous opportunistic disease, the expectation of life without treatment decreases to around 1 year. Fortunately with the development of treatment, the life expectancy of people with AIDS is increasing.
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