Sexual Health AIDS

AIDS 

AIDS means Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

AIDS is a medical condition.

It is a collection of symptoms & infections resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus.

This virus Call HIV.

Since the first cases of AIDS were identified in 1981.

more than 25 million people have died from AIDS.

An estimated 1.8 million people died as a result of AIDS in 2009 alone.

HIV is a virus that gradually attacks immune system cells.

As HIV progressively damages these cells.

the body becomes more vulnerable to infections.

which it will have difficulty in fighting off.

It can be years before HIV has damaged the immune system enough for AIDS to develop.

The late stage of the condition leaves individuals prone to opportunistic infections and tumors.

Although treatments for AIDS and HIV exist to slow the virus's progression there is no known cure.

This transmission can come in the form of :

1. Anal vaginal or oral sex,

2. Blood transfusion,

3. Contaminated hypodermic needles,

4. Exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy,

5. Childbirth,

6. breastfeeding,

7. Other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.

HIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV (such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk).