| Researchers
don't know but it appears that the majority of people who are HIV-positive
develop AIDS eventually, often within 10 years. Today there is no known
cure for HIV/AIDS. Compared with teenagers whose first partner had been
about their same age, females with older first sex partners were found to
be less likely to use a condom at first intercourse, last intercourse, or
to use condoms consistently over their lifetime or in the previous six
months. HIV is transmitted through four fluids: blood, semen, vaginal
secretions, and breast milk. So blood-on-blood contact, and sexual contact
where semen or vaginal fluids are exchanged, can transmit HIV. A mother
can also pass the virus to her baby during her pregnancy, when she gives
birth, or through breast-feeding. HIV protects itself with a ring of
sugars that expose potential antibody binding sites briefly while it
infects cells. AIDS is a
sexually transmitted disease so you can get it through sexual intercourse.
You can also get it by sharing needles through drug use. As HIV develops
into AIDS, a person could experience vomiting, night sweats,
sleeplessness, weakness, and fevers. When that person gets AIDS, the
immune system is so beaten up that his or her body becomes susceptible to
infections from which healthy people are usually protected. Examples of
these include shingles, which is an adult version of chicken pox, which is
a yeast infection of the throat and mouth and Karposi sarcoma, a cancer in
which lesions and open sores appear on the skin. The sharing of needles,
syringes, and other injection drug paraphernalia long has been recognized
as a prime method for the transmission of HIV. In fact, injection drug use
is the second highest HIV risk factor identified in Houston. Although
actual numbers remain constant, females having unprotected heterosexual
sex are replacing drug-injecting women. While people have virtually
eradicated smallpox and contained polio, similar success in finding a
vaccine for AIDS is not as bright.
Being bitten by a mosquito, or other insects,
eating food handled by someone with HIV, sharing toilets, telephones, or
clothing, touching, hugging, or kissing someone who is HIV-positive,
living, working, or going to school with someone with HIV shaking hands
with someone with HIV sneezing or coughing, attending church, movie
theaters, concerts or other public places with someone who may be
HIV-positive. Also not to catch the HIV or aids is to abstaining from sex,
practicing monogamy, not using drugs that will impair making healthy
decisions, not having sex with people known to inject drugs, not injecting
drugs or sharing needles, using dental dams during oral sex, not having
sex with multiple partners or persons known to have to multiple partners,
not having unprotected sexual contact, not having unprotected sex, getting
tested regularly, using latex condoms using water based lubricants.
|
