HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a virus that causes deficiency in the immune system of a human, which means that the immune system isn’t working properly anymore. As a person gets infected by
HIV, the virus causes the death of
Cd4 cells, which are responsible to keep our bodies safe against diseases and infections. There are three stages of the HIV infection:
- Stage 1, is called Acute Infection. During that period, is is very hard to identify the disease, however an infected person is very prone to getting other infections.
- Stage 2, is called Clinical Latency. In this stage, the growth of retroviral infection is lower than in acute infection. This stage can go longer than decade and depends on the growth of virus and the death of Cd4 cells.
- Stage 3, is most commonly called AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). In this stage, people have very low immune power and can barely resist against other diseases. Oftentimes those people are then infected by general diseases like fever, swollen lymph glands, chills, which oftentimes ends fatal.
Causes of HIV/AIDS
There is not a single cause for
HIV/AIDS. The most common mode of transmission of HIV/AIDS is due to having unsafe sex. Other common modes of transmission are exchange of needles, organ transplant from an infected person, blood transfusion and body fluid (blood and mucous fluid) exchange.
There are several myths and fears among the people about the transmission of the disease; however, it cannot be transmitted by any means other than described above. The infection is increasing day by day as poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, unawareness, migration, urbanization, gender discrimination, an open border with India, lack of proper care and actions of parents towards children, stigma, and discrimination of society towards infected people, myths and a lack of knowledge generally about HIV/AIDS are prevailing in our society.