HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus.

It harms your immune system by destroying the white blood cells

that fight infection. This puts you at risk for serious infections and certain cancers. AIDS stands for acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome. It is the final stage of infection with HIV. Not everyone with HIV develops AIDS.

HIV most often spreads through unprotected sex with an infected person. It may also spread by sharing drug
needles or through contact with the blood of an infected person. Women can give it to their babies during
pregnancy or childbirth.

The first signs of HIV infection may be swollen glands and flu-like symptoms. These may come and go within two
to four weeks. Severe symptoms may not appear until months or years later.

Diagnosis and test

A blood test can tell if you have HIV infection. Your health care provider can do the test, or you can use a home
testing kit

There is no cure, but there are many medicines that fight HIV infection and lower the risk of infecting others.
People who get early treatment can live with the disease for a long time.

Signs and symptoms

The symptoms of HIV vary, depending on the individual and what stage of the disease you are in: the early stage,
the clinical latency stage, or AIDS (the late stage of HIV infection). Below are the symptoms that some individuals
may experience in these three stages. Not all individuals will experience these symptoms.

Early Stage of HIV

About 40% to 90% of people have flu-like symptoms within 2-4 weeks after HIV infection. Other people do not
feel sick at all during this stage, which is also known as acute HIV infection. Early infection is defined as HIV
infection in the past six months (recent) and includes acute (very recent) infections. Flu-like symptoms can
include:

Fever

Chills

Rash
Night sweats

Muscle aches

Sore throat

Fatigue

Swollen lymph nodes

Mouth ulcers

These symptoms can last anywhere from a few days to several weeks. During this time, HIV infection may not
show up on some types of HIV tests, but people who have it are highly infectious and can spread the infection to
others.

You should not assume you have HIV just because you have any of these symptoms. Each of these symptoms can
be caused by other illnesses. And some people who have HIV do not show any symptoms at all for 10 years or
more.

Prevention

more tools than ever are available to prevent HIV. You can use strategies such as abstinence (not having sex),
limiting your number of sexual partners, never sharing needles, and using condoms the right way every time you
have sex. You may also be able to take advantage of newer HIV prevention medicines such as pre-exposure
prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).

If you are living with HIV, there are many actions you can take to prevent passing it to others. The most important
is taking medicines to treat HIV (called antiretroviral therapy, or ART) the right way, every day. They can keep you
healthy for many years and greatly reduce your chance of transmitting HIV to your partners.

Treatments and therapies the early 1980s, when the HIV/AIDS epidemic began, patients rarely lived longer than
a few years. But today, there are many effective medicines to fight the infection, and people with HIV have
longer, healthier lives.

There are five major types of medicines:

Reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors - interfere with a critical step during the HIV life cycle and keep the virus from
making copies of itself

Protease inhibitors - interfere with a protein that HIV uses to make infectious viral particles

Fusion inhibitors - block the virus from entering the body's cells
Integrase inhibitors - block an enzyme HIV needs to make copies of itself

Multidrug combinations - combine two or more different types of drugs into one

These medicines help people with HIV, but they are not perfect. They do not cure HIV/AIDS. People with HIV
infection still have the virus in their bodies. They can still spread HIV to others through unprotected sex and
needle sharing, even when they are taking their medicines.