HIV and AIDS Symptoms

HIV/AIDS is a sickness that reduces the immune system. It is prevalent in low and medium income population (Lou, Chen, Yu, Li, & Ye, 2014, p.1044). HIV causes AIDS.

Signs and symptoms

They depend on the phase of the disease, which includes acute HIV infection, latent clinical infections, and the last stage AIDS (Cohen, Gay, Busch, & Hecht, 2010, p.272). The signs for the first phase include

Headache

Fever

Rashes

Muscle ache

Sore throat

Swollen lymph glands

Clinical latent phase in most people has no specific clinical symptoms, while the last stage the following signs are common;

Weight loss

Chronic diarrhea

Skin rashes

Soaking sweating

Hepatomegaly Neurologic symptoms

Myalgia/Arthraligia PharyngitisInvestigation and diagnosis

It is diagnosed by testing blood and saliva (Gardner, McLees, Steiner, del Rio, & Burman, 2011, p. 794). To administer treatment, a doctor carries out the following

CD4 count

Viral load

Drug resistance

Treatment

It is treated using antiretrovirals (ARVs), which helps in reducing the multiplication of the virus (Abdool Karim et al., 2010).

Complications

It reduces the immune system leading complications below;

Tuberculosis

Cryptosporidiosis

Kaposi's sarcoma

Lymphomas

CandidiasisPrevention (Bennett et al., 2015)

Using condoms during sex

Male circumcision

Medical care during pregnancy (Elsheikh, Crutzen, & Van den Borne, 2015, p. 7)

Use clean needles and other sharp objects

Future research

Future research should be carried out to find a cure for the disease.

References

Abdool Karim, Q., Abdool Karim, S., Frohlich, J., Grobler, A., Baxter, C., & Mansoor, L. et al. (2010). Effectiveness and Safety of Tenofovir Gel, an Antiretroviral Microbicide, for the Prevention of HIV Infection in Women. Science, 329(5996), 1168-1174. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1193748

Bennett, S., Singh, S., Rodriguez, D., Ozawa, S., Singh, K., Chhabra, V., & Dhingra, N. (2015). Transitioning a Large Scale HIV/AIDS Prevention Program to Local Stakeholders: Findings from the Avahan Transition Evaluation. PLOS ONE, 10(9), e0136177. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136177

Cohen, M., Gay, C., Busch, M., & Hecht, F. (2010). The Detection of Acute HIV Infection. The Journal Of Infectious Diseases, 202(2), 270-277. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/655651

Elsheikh, I., Crutzen, R., & Van den Borne, H. (2015). Perceptions of Sudanese women of reproductive age toward HIV/AIDS and services for Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV. BMC Public Health, 15(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2054-1

Gardner, E., McLees, M., Steiner, J., del Rio, C., & Burman, W. (2011). The Spectrum of Engagement in HIV Care and its Relevance to Test-and-Treat Strategies for Prevention of HIV Infection.Clinical Infectious Diseases, 52(6), 793-800. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciq243

Lou, L., Chen, Y., Yu, C., Li, Y., & Ye, J. (2014). National HIV/AIDS mortality, prevalence, and incidence rates are associated with the Human Development Index. American Journal Of Infection Control, 42(10), 1044-1048. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2014.06.029