1. McDowell 1
HIV
Toya S. McDowell
Microbiology
Dr. T
November 09, 2009

2. McDowell 2
HIV is the cause of a lot of deaths in this world today. Back in the 80’s people thought
that gay men was the cost of Hiv, but as scentist found out more information about the virus
people learned that Hiv can be given to someone in three different ways. Having unprotected
sex with someone that is affect with hiv, using needles or syrignes with an affected person, or a
mother that is affected giving birth to an infant. “Scientists identified a type of chimpanzee in
west africa as the source of Hiv infection in humans. The virus most likely jumped to humans
when humans hunted these chimpanzees for meat and came into contact with their infected
blood.’’(cdc september, 3). If people would hove never hunted these animals this disease
probably would not be here today.
Also when people have Hiv they will eventually get “infection cause by virus e.g.,
cryptosporiduim, Toxoplasma, bacteria e.g., myocobacteria, and fungi e.g., candida, crytococcus,
pneumocystis become systemic and cause death.”(book). Once all these infections take over
Aids come about. Aids is the final stage of Hiv. A person can live for years with Hiv before it
even get to this point. When a person has Hiv “you cannot rely on symptoms alone because
many people who are infected with Hiv do not have symptoms for many years. Someone can
look and feel healthy but can be infected.” (cdc september 3, 2009). This is one big reason why
anyone who has more then one partner or unprotected sex should get check out to make sure they
do not have Hiv.
At the same time, this is the reason why “Hiv infection is often undiagnosed or
misdiagnosed because anti-hiv antibodies are not usually detected during the early phase of
infection.”(book). If people do have symptoms it will be things like fever, rash, headache

3. McDowell 2
etc… When Hiv is diagnosis” individuals develop detectable antibodies within one to three
months after infection. However, there may be a more prolonged interval of up to six months, or
even longer in some cases. Antigen detection precedures detect an hiv antigen known as
p24.(book). Being that Hiv does not always show up on the first test it should be a law that
everyone having sex get check once a year.
Futhermore, when a person finds out they have hiv there is no cure for it, but there is a
medicine you can take called “zidovudine” (book). Or there is an antiretroviral therapy which
“is to reduce the hiv viral load to as low as possible for as long as possible. The overall objective
of treatment for hiv disease, as with treatment for many other infectious disease, is to control the
putative agent with antimicrobial agents.” (cdc). When doing these treatments it helps with a
person living longer because if a person is not doing no type of treatment they get sick faster.
When workin in a healthcare facutily people should always wear gloves dealing with needles,
fecal blood, and body fluids of an hiv patients.
In conclusion, hiv is a dangerous disease that everybody should worry about and always
get check to make sure they do not have it, and if they do get treatment right away. People
should as always protect theirselves so they would not get it. If this happen the the dealths in the
United States would go down do to Hiv.