The basics of HIV Prevention

HIV prevention is possible. Individuals can reduce the risk of HIV infection by limiting exposure to risk factors. Key approaches for HIV prevention, which are often used in combination, are listed below.

Read More

Risk Factors of HIV

HIV can be transmitted from person to person in blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid (pre-cum), fluids from the vagina and rectum, and breast milk. So most people are at risk when body fluids from someone who's infected could get into and mix with theirs.

Read More

HIV Testing

What is HIV testing?

HIV testing is a technique carried out to show whether a person has HIV.

HIV testing can detect HIV infection, but it can’t tell how long a person has been infected with HIV or if the person has AIDS.

Read More

Signs & Symptoms of HIV Infection

At first, people with HIV don’t usually have symptoms right away, so they may not know they have it. It can be years before HIV makes you feel sick.

Read More

Stages of HIV Infection

Untreated HIV infection advances in stages, getting worse over time. HIV gradually destroys the immune system and eventually causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).


There is no cure for HIV infection, but HIV medicines (called antiretrovirals or ARVs) can slow or prevent HIV from advancing from one stage to the next. HIV medicines help people with HIV live longer, healthier lives. HIV medicines also reduce the risk of HIV transmission (the spread of HIV to others).

There are three stages of HIV infection:

Acute HIV Infection
Acute HIV infection is the earliest stage of HIV infection, and it generally develops within 2 to 4 weeks after infection with HIV. During this time, some people have flu-like symptoms, such as fever, headache, and rash. In the acute stage of infection, HIV multiplies rapidly and spreads throughout the body. The virus attacks and destroys the infection-fighting CD4 cells of the immune system. During the acute HIV infection stage, the level of HIV in the blood is very high, which greatly increases the risk of HIV transmission.


Chronic HIV Infection
The second stage of HIV infection is chronic HIV infection (also called asymptomatic HIV infection or clinical latency). During this stage of the disease, HIV continues to multiply in the body but at very low levels. People with chronic HIV infection may not have any HIV-related symptoms, but they can still spread HIV to others. Without treatment with HIV medicines, chronic HIV infection usually advances to AIDS in 10 years or longer, though in some people it may advance faster.

AIDS
AIDS is the final, most severe stage of HIV infection. Because HIV has severely damaged the immune system, the body can’t fight off opportunistic infections. (Opportunistic infections are infections and infection-related cancers that occur more frequently or are more severe in people with weakened immune systems than in people with healthy immune systems.) People with HIV are diagnosed with AIDS if they have a CD4 count of less than 200 cells/mm3or if they have certain opportunistic infections. Without treatment, people with AIDS typically survive about 3 years.

Continue Reading: Signs and Symptoms of HIV Infection



Stay up to date on the latest news in I'm Emmanuel Blog by getting I'm Emmanuel Blog updates in your mailbox or inbox for free!

Click here to sign up for our email newsletters delivered everyday, in addition to breaking news alerts.

Read More

Prevalence of HIV Infection in Nigeria

HIV is a major global public health issue that has claimed the lives of over 30 Million people.

Nigeria has the second largest HIV epidemic in the world. Although HIV prevalence among adults is much less (2.8%) than other sub-Saharan African countries such as South Africa(18.8%) and Zambia (11.5%), the size of Nigeria's population means 3.1 million people were living with HIV in 2017.

Read More

What are HIV and AIDS?

What is HIV?

HIV is a virus that attacks cells in the immune system, which is our body’s natural defence against illness. The virus destroys a type of white blood cell in the immune system called a T-helper cell, and makes copies of itself inside these cells. T-helper cells are also referred to as CD4 cells.

Read More