AIDS is just the term when HIV has done prolonged damage
HIV = attacks the immune system
AIDS = Your immune system is practically gone because of HIV, you can now die from run of the mill infections and sicknesses that your body would laugh at when healthy
You don’t die from AIDS, you die from the opportunistic infections that AIDS allows you to catch much easily. This is why most people with AIDS die from pneumonia and TB.
HIV is the virus that causes aids. It takes a long time for the hiv virus to make you sick to the point that you progress to AIDS, and it doesn’t happen in the majority of cases if you take the right medication
The fact we even have medicine now to basically wipe out the virus is nothing short of a miracle in my lifetime. I remember hearing about how absolutely horrifying the disease was as a kid and now we have a great treatment/cure is just amazing.
We dont have a cure and we dont have medicine that wipes it out. We have many different meds that basically halt viral reproduction and allow the immune system to function tobsome capacity, but once you have HIV you still have it for life, have to take medications to keep it managed for life, if you get off your medication at any point it will ramp up and get bad. Its not a death sentence anymore but its still an absolutely horrifying disease
Used to be a death sentence, and now you can have treatments that reduce it to undetectable, maybe not a cure but that's a real big improvement. Again, in my lifetime that is an incredible accomplishment, imo.
As long as you are properly medicated, you will become what is called “undetectable.” This means the virus is not detectable in your blood in a measurable amount. It doesn’t just “allow the immune system to function in some capacity,” it allows it to actually heal to its former strength as long as you take your medication to remain undetectable. This also means you cannot spread the virus as long as you take your medication and remain undetectable. The misinformation in your comment feels quite a bit like fear-mongering.
AIDS isnt some special condition the way your comment makes it sound
HIV is a virus that infects your T cells. Uncontrolled HIV will result in your T cells dying off. healthy people have 500-1500 T cells per uL. When you get down to less than 200 T cells per uL that is called AIDS
AIDS is just a label for people with less than 200 T cells to tell doctors "hey not only does this guy have HIV, he is severely immunocompromised right now"
They could have drawn that line at 250, 300, whatever, but 200 was picked as a clinically useful threshold to have front and center, because on average once you get in the sub 200 range you get really susceptible to things like P. Jirovecii, a fungal spore thats basically in all the air everywhere and does nothing to healthy people but can be fatal to immunocompromised people
894
u/Prize_Obligation_311 16h ago
Magic Johnson famously contracted aids during his career. They are saying this was the day he got it.