What happens if HIV is left untreated?
Untreated, HIV typically turns into AIDS in about 8 to 10 years. When AIDS occurs, your immune system has been severely damaged. You’ll be more likely to develop opportunistic infections or opportunistic cancers — diseases that wouldn’t usually cause illness in a person with a healthy immune system.
What are the long term effects of HIV?
Common comorbidities that have known associations with long-term ART use and chronic HIV infection in older patients include fracture risk and osteoporosis, renal and metabolic disorders, central nervous system (CNS) disorders, cardiovascular disease, and liver disease.
How does HIV affect a human?
HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a virus that attacks the immune system. (The immune system fights infections and diseases in a person’s body.) Over time, HIV weakens a person’s immune system so it has a very hard time fighting diseases. HIV causes AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome).
What happens after HIV infection?
By the third stage of HIV infection a person’s immune system is severely damaged. At this point, they’re more likely to get serious infections or diseases that the body would otherwise be able to fight off. These infections are known as ‘opportunistic infections’.
What are the side effects of HIV?
Side Effects Of HIV On Cardiovascular And Respiratory System. HIV increases the risk of flu, fever, and pneumonia. Without advanced preventive HIV treatment, puts an individual is at a greater risk for complications such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and a disease called pneumocystis carinii pneumonia or PCP.
How does HIV infect the body and the lifecycle of HIV?
How HIV infects the body and the lifecycle of HIV. FAST FACTS. HIV infects white blood cells in the body’s immune system called T-helper cells (or CD4 cells). The virus attaches itself to the T-helper cell; it then fuses with it, takes control of its DNA, replicates itself and releases more HIV into the blood.
What impact does HIV have on the community?
HIV/AIDS has a huge impact on the infected individual’s family unit and the community they live in. The impact is dependent on the mode in which the virus is transmitted among communities (and who it infects), the diagnosis of infection, and the community setting in which the individual and family live.
What disease causes HIV?
AIDS is the disease caused by human immunodeficiency virus type 1, or HIV-1 (referred to as HIV). HIV belongs to the retrovirus family, a group of viruses that have the ability to use cell ‘s ‘ machinery to replicate.