HIV/AIDS

In its severe form, life threatening diseases occur, such as strong pneumonia occur. These symptoms are called AIDS, which stands for “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome“. Today, very potent drugs against HIV exist. They prevent the proliferation of the virus within the blood stream. Although these treatments cannot completely remove the virus from the patient’s body, HIV-infected people may survive the disease for a long time.

In 2015, 84,700 people in Germany were infected with HIV (3,200 of which became infected in 2015, the others were already infected). This amount has neither increased nor decreased in recent years. Generally, gay people are more often infected by HIV than heterosexual people (gay: 2,200, heterosexual: 750, intravenous drug consumption: 250). Also in 2015, the number of deaths amounted 460 ( estimated ). Altogether, 12,600 affected people out of the 84,700 were not aware that they are infected by HIV. This means a higher risk of spreading the infection, because they will not take sufficient care, nor be able to tell their sexual partners about their infection-status.

If we talk about HIV, there are a few questions often come up:

How high is the risk of infection? It is difficult to give a generally correct answer, because infection risks are highly dependant on the individual. One factor is how reliable the HIV-infected patients take their antiretroviral drugs. Another important issue is the susceptibility of the exposed partner. Infections are possible via oral uptake of semen or breast milk. Kissing, biting and dental treatments do not pose any risks. Unprotected sexual contacts with infected individuals is the most common cause of infection. The type of sexual behavior is less important than the type of transfer protection (e.g. condoms).

How much does a condom protect? Using condoms during heterosexual contacts reduces the HIV virus load to 50 copies per ml. This drastically reduces the infection rate. HIV infected people who do not regularly take their antiviral drugs increase their virus titers and their infectiousness significantly.

How long does the HIV survive outside the body? Depending on environmental conditions, HIV may remain infectious for days outside the human body. If the virus has no chance to enter a body through wounds or specific body parts, it doesn’t matter whether the virus is infectious or not. This applies for blood and sperm either inside or outside the body. Once the body fluid has dried, there is no possibility for any kind of transmission . However, if the ejaculate gets incorporated into the vagina, the bowel or the mouth, the contained virus may infect the person. Also, if dried blood gets re-moistened and injected into the body there is an infection risk. Mere skin contact, or contact with injured skin poses no infection risk, because the virus cannot permeate healthy skin. Viruses don’t die they are just inactivated and are not infectious anymore.

The time between infection and detection of antibodies varies from person to person. Actual findings say that – if you use a 4th generation test – the test can show a positive result six weeks after infection. In cases where you perform a confirmatory test (immunoblot or nucleonic acid amplification test) you can be quite sure whether or not the patient has an HIV-infection. Formerly, you had to wait 12 weeks to diagnose HIV, because you had to wait until antibodies were produced. Nowadays a direct virus detection is used (p24-antigen), so the test can be performed at 6 weeks post-contact.

The earliest possible time for detection of a measurable virus proliferation within the blood is about 10–11 days (average) after the infection and is mostly done using PCR methods. The detection of viral p24-antigen usually requires 16–18 days, and it lasts about 22 days until antibodies can be detected. Various factors determine the interval between the viral infection and its proliferation and antibody formation. This interval varies significantly between individual patients.

Several quick HIV tests are registered in Germany. Such quick tests provide a result within about 15 minutes. However, quick tests are less precise than standard routine ELISA tests (quick tests give more false-positive results). They also detect an infection later than lab tests, especially when performed on full blood, capillary blood or saliva.

Today, there is no scientific doubt that HIV causes AIDS. Nevertheless, some small groups question the causal relation between HIV and AIDS. Their arguments did not withstand any scientific research.

EXERCISE: 1. The most common form of HIV-transmission is? a. Male to male. b. Heterosexual contact. c. Exposure to contaminated blood products.

2. The most risky behaviour for a patient to get infected with HIV is? a. Use of sex toys. b. Anal sex with condom. c. Oral sex with condom.

3. The leading way that AIDS is spread worldwide is? a. Homosexual sexual activity. b. IV drug use. c. Heterosexual activity.

You’ll find the answers on: http://tinyurl.com/weiterbildung-englisch

Entnommen aus MTA Dialog 1/2017

Die Autorin: Carmen Lobitz mail@lobitz-seminare.de www.lobitz-seminare.de Carmen Lobitz ist freie Trainerin, Lehrerin und MTA. Sie gründete 1998 in Berlin lobitz seminare, die u.a. Englischseminare für Health Professionals anbieten.

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