SYMPTOMS OF HIV INFECTION AND AIDS

Q: What are some of the symptoms of HIV infection and AIDS?

Once infected with HIV, a person may or may not experience any symptoms.  People who do experience symptoms might have a flu-like illness within one or two months after infection. Symptoms can include fever, headache, tiredness and/or enlarged lymph nodes. These symptoms usually disappear within a week to a month and are often mistaken for the symptoms of more common viral infections, like a cold.

More persistent or severe symptoms might not appear for several years after a person is first infected with HIV. This period of ‘asymptomatic’ infection is highly individual. Some people might begin to have symptoms within a few months, while others might be symptom-free for more than 10 years.

As the immune system is weakened by HIV, several complications and symptoms could begin to occur.  These symptoms might be made worse if the HIV-positive person is not getting the care and services they need.

For many people, the first signs of infection are enlarged lymph nodes or ‘swollen glands’ that may be inflamed for several months.

Other symptoms that HIV-positive people might experience months to years before receiving an AIDS diagnosis include:

* Lack of energy

* Weight loss

* Frequent fevers and sweats (sometimes known as ‘night sweats’)

* Persistent or frequent yeast infections (oral or vaginal)

* Persistent skin rashes or flaky skin

* Pelvic inflammatory disease in women that does not respond to treatment

* Short-term memory loss

* Frequent and severe herpes infections that cause mouth, genital, or anal sores, or a painful nerve disease called shingles.

Both men and women experience many of the same symptoms from HIV infection. However, women also experience unique complications that are primarily gynecologic. These could include recurrent vaginal yeast infections, severe pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) or human papillomavirus (HPV) infections.

Other vaginal infections might occur more frequently and with greater severity in HIV-positive women (compared with HIV-negative women), including bacterial vaginosis and common sexually transmitted infections such as gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis.

HIV-positive women might also experience disruptions or other irregularities in their menstrual cycles.The signs and symptoms of HIV/AIDS are similar to the symptoms of many other illnesses. The only way to determine HIV infection is to be tested.

Q: Which body fluids transmit HIV?

Blood, semen, vaginal fluid, breast milk, and other body fluids containing blood taken from HIV-positive people can contain high concentrations of HIV.  The virus also might be present in the fluid surrounding the brain and the spinal cord, fluid surrounding bone joints and fluid surrounding a fetus of an HIV-positive pregnant woman.

HIV has been found in the saliva and tears of some HIV-positive people, but in very low quantities. A small amount of HIV in a body fluid does not necessarily mean that HIV can be transmitted by that body fluid. HIV has not been recovered from the sweat of HIV-positive people. Contact with saliva, tears or sweat has never been shown to result in HIV transmission.

Q: How well does HIV survive outside the body?

HIV does not survive for very long outside of the human body. HIV is unable to reproduce outside its living host, except under laboratory conditions.  Therefore, it does not spread or maintain infectiousness outside its host.

Source:   Global healthreporting.org