About HIV/AIDS - Merrymeeting AIDS Support Services

What is HIV?

HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. HIV is a virus that infects people's bodies and attacks cells that fight infection and disease. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. Being HIV-positive, or having HIV disease, is not the same as having AIDS. Many people are HIV-positive but don't get sick for many years. As HIV disease continues, it slowly wears down the immune system. Viruses, parasites, fungi and bacteria that usually don't cause any problems can make you very sick if your immune system is damaged.

What is AIDS?

AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. AIDS is caused by a virus called HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. If you get infected with HIV, your body will try to fight the infection. It will make "antibodies," special molecules that are supposed to fight HIV.

How Do You Get AIDS?

You don't actually "get" AIDS. You might get infected with HIV, and later you might develop AIDS.

You can get infected with HIV from anyone who's infected, even if they don't look sick, and even if they haven't tested HIV-positive yet. The blood, vaginal fluid, semen, and breast milk of people infected with HIV has enough of the virus in it to infect other people. Most people get the HIV virus by:

Having sex with an infected person.
Sharing a needle (shooting drugs) with someone who's infected.
Being born when their mother is infected, or drinking the breast milk of an infected woman.

Getting a transfusion of infected blood used to be a way people got AIDS, but now the blood supply is screened very carefully and the risk is extremely low.

There are no documented cases of HIV being transmitted by tears or saliva, but it is possible to be infected with HIV through oral sex or in rare cases through deep kissing, especially if you have open sores in your mouth or bleeding gums.

In the United States, there are about 800,000 to 900,000 people who are HIV-positive. Over 300,000 people are living with AIDS. Each year, there are about 40,000 new infections. In the mid-1990s, AIDS was a leading cause of death. However, newer treatments have cut the AIDS death rate significantly.