What is HIV?

What is HIV?

It is really very important to get the basics of HIV/AIDS clear. HIV is Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is the virus which causes AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). AIDS is the last stage of HIV infection. HIV are lentiviruses which are slow viruses. The reason why they are known to be as slow viruses, is because they affect the immune system slowly. There are even cases when the first symptoms of HIV starts showing up after several years of contacting infection.

HIV, upon entering the blood stream, starts attacking the CD4 cells (also known as T4 cells). These T4 cells are responsible for a stronger immune system. The more the cells are the, more immune the body is towards external viruses. HIV targets the T4 cells and starts replicating these cells, which leads to the destruction of these vital cells. What follows next is, deterioration of the whole immune system. Studies shows that the final stages of AIDS will leave a patient with only 200 or less T4 cells, when on an average a healthy adult will have 1,000 or more of them!