When the virus is passed from one person to another there is no immediate sign. In fact the person who may have just given their sexual partner a viral death sentence may not even know that they have it themselves. Some time later, and it may be within a matter of weeks, the newly infected person may suffer an illness, not unlike glandular fever, with fevers, tiredness and swollen glands. Only about half of all newly infected people will experience this stage, which may be quite disabling or barely noticeable. When it has passed, the person may feel perfectly well, although the virus is in the blood stream. A few people may have mild persistent symptoms.
The progression from simply having the virus, but feeling well, to showing some sign of infection is variable. It may be months or many years before the next phase of the disease, when there is physical evidence that the virus has affected the immune system. This is the point at which a person moves from being ‘HIV positive’ to ‘having AIDS or an AIDS-related complex’.
There are many physical symptoms and signs that may indicate this phase of the disease, depending on what organs are affected by which bugs or cancers. One feature is lymph glands that are persistently swollen for more than three months.
Other symptoms which may indicate infection include:
• fevers and night sweats
• chronic cough (which may indicate pneumonia)
• weight loss (more than 10 per cent of body weight)
• persistent diarrhoea
• persistent or recurrent minor infections, like Candida (thrush, particularly in the mouth), or herpes (coidsores and shingles)
• neurological problems (something wrong with the brain and nervous system), including trouble with walking, memory, mood, thinking, skin sensation, vision, or other functions
• skin lesions, particularly persistent raised red-purple marks which get bigger (which describes ‘Kaposi’s sarcoma’, a form of cancer)
• persistent weakness and tiredness.
Most of us will experience some of those things to varying degrees at some stage. In order to diagnose AIDS the symptoms must be accompanied by a positive blood test. When rested for, there is usually also evidence that the virus has started affecting the body’s white (infection-fighting) cells.
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