Symptoms of AIDS

HIV/AIDS severely impairs the body’s immune system. It kills infection-fighting white blood cells. An HIV/AIDS patient is at risk of contracting opportunistic infections (OIs) due to a weakened immune system. OIs are dangerous infections that feed on the body’s weakened immune system. In healthy persons, these illnesses are less prevalent and less severe. An HIV/AIDS patient’s conditions can be more challenging. HIV/AIDS patients are more likely to develop complications from common infections like the flu. By adhering to the HIV/AIDS medications, a patient can help prevent infections. Other things that can help include using protection during sex, cleaning the hands properly and frequently, and consuming properly cooked meals.

What is AIDS?

HIV is primarily an immunodeficiency infection that affects both men and women. HIV is mainly a sexually transmitted infection (STI). It could also be passed on from a mother to her child through contact with infected blood during pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. It could take years for HIV to impair the immune system to the point wherein the person acquires AIDS, especially if they don’t undergo treatment. 

Although there is no cure for HIV/AIDS, medications can greatly slow the progression of the disease. These medicines have reduced AIDS fatalities in several developed countries.

What are the signs and symptoms of AIDS?

The acronym AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. The immune system is impaired in this state due to HIV infection that has been left unchecked for many years. A person with HIV diagnosed and treated with antiretroviral medication is unlikely to produce AIDS early on. People with HIV who are not diagnosed until the late stages or those aware of having HIV but don’t take their antiretroviral therapy regularly may develop AIDS. They may also acquire AIDS if they have an HIV strain resistant to (and does not react to) antiretroviral treatment.

People living with HIV are more likely to get AIDS if they do not receive adequate and consistent therapy. When HIV evolves into AIDS, the immune system suffers significant damage, and it becomes extremely difficult to respond to viruses and bacteria. Antiretroviral medication allows a person to have a persistent HIV infection without acquiring AIDS for decades.

AIDS symptoms can include:

• Fever that comes and goes

• Lymph glands are swollen for a long time, especially in the armpits, neck, and groyne.

• Chronic exhaustion

• Sweating during night

• Black splotches beneath the skin or within the mouth, nose, or eyelids

• Mouth and tongue sores, patches or lesions in genitals, and even in the anus

• Rashes, pimples or lesions on the skin

• Diarrhoea that is recurrent or chronic

• Rapid weight loss

• Concentration issues, memory loss, and confusion are neurologic issues.
• Anxiety and sadness are two conditions that affect people.

Antiretroviral therapy keeps the virus under control and prevents the disease from progressing to AIDS. That treatment must be adapted to the person’s specific needs.

Causes of HIV

HIV is a virus that passed from African chimps to humans. Scientists believe the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) spread from chimps to humans when individuals ate virus-infected chimp meat. The virus transformed into what we know today as HIV once it entered the population of humans. It happened in the 1920s, most likely. Over several decades, HIV has been transmitted from person to person across Africa. The virus eventually spread to other parts of the globe. HIV was found in a human blood sample for the first time in 1959. HIV is assumed to have been present in the United States since the 1970s, but it wasn’t widely recognised until the 1980s.

HIV/AIDS treatment options

Treatment should start as soon as feasible after an HIV diagnosis, regardless of viral load. The most frequent cure for HIV is antiretroviral therapy, which involves the combination of daily medications which inhibit the virus from growing. It helps to protect CD4 cells, which allows the immune system to maintain enough strength to fight the disease. 

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is a drug that prevents HIV infection from progressing to AIDS. It also lowers the chance of HIV spreading to others. If therapy is successful, the viral load will be “unnoticeable.” The virus is not visible in test results, even though the person still carries HIV. The virus, on the other hand, remains in the body. The viral load will rise again if the person quits taking antiretroviral medication, and then HIV will be able to attack CD4 cells once more.

Conclusion

When HIV/AIDS is left untreated, it can lead to severe weight loss and diarrhoea, chronic weakness, and fever. It may even trigger nervous system problems like amnesia, anxiety, melancholy, mental confusion and difficulties in walking. There is currently no cure for HIV/AIDS. A patient’s body will not be able to purge the disease once it has been acquired. There are, however, a variety of drugs that can help manage HIV and prevent further complications. These drugs come under antiretroviral therapy (ART). This article tried to provide all the necessary information about the symptoms of AIDS.