What is AIDS?

In answer to the question ‘What is AIDS?’ it is a medical condition caused by a virus called Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV for short. The term AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. To break it down for you, that means it is a disease you can get infected with, that breaks down your immune system, making it more difficult for your body to fight diseases and infections.

AIDS is developed after becoming infected with HIV and cannot be obtained directly on its own. It is estimated that around 1.2 million people in the US have HIV or AIDS and 25 percent of these people are unaware they have the virus. There is no cure for AIDS only drugs to slow down the HIV virus and therefore slow down the rate at which it damages your immune system. Once you have HIV there is no way to remove it from your body. One way to test for AIDS is to test for the CD4 cells in your blood. In a micro liter of blood a healthy person would have around 500 to 1500 CD4 cells. If you have 200 or less, this is classified as having AIDS.

As the immune system deteriorates because of the HIV, a person is likely to fall ill more frequently and for longer periods of time. Illnesses that did not bother us before become very serious and debilitating. When a person develops several conditions at once they are classified as having AIDS. It is at this point the body has a serious lack of defense against illnesses and the infection has reached a point where an illness contracted can result in death. Different countries have different ways of determining when exactly a person is classified in having AIDS rather than HIV.