Lorraine describes how HIV and AIDS differ from one another.
HIV is, you can be exposed or infected by. Some people can live many years without needing any medications. It’s a virus that slowly, what it does is destroy white cells. It’s compromising the immune system.
AIDS is when a person has had a T-cell count of below 200 or a high viral load of virus in their system that has attacked the immune system enough to where they are not able to fight back the bacteria.
There’s different types of infections. A person doesn’t necessarily die from AIDS; it’s usually complications of AIDS. And what I mean by that is, if we use the example of the common flu, or the common cold I should say, is that a person in your household, there could be eight of you in the house; one gets the cold; maybe it’s passed on to the other, but let’s say six others don’t get the cold, okay? It’s something like that.
A person who has AIDS has less likely a suppressed immune system that they are not able to fight off infections so they get more sick. They get sick to the point where they are not able to fight back, and because of the fact that their immune system is so depleted that they continue to get more infections, and it could be as severe as cancer, brain tumors. It could be nervous system issues; it could be just different complications because I mean, there’s people who are HIV who weren’t diabetics who have diabetes now, who have maybe other issues of other forms of cancer or pneumonias or things like TB or Valley Fever because of the fact that their immune system is so suppressed.
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