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© Copyright 2001, Jim Loy
HIV causes AIDS. Some people claim that it does not, but it does. HIV is a virus, AIDS is a disease. If you test positive for HIV, will you get AIDS? Common sense would answer, "Not necessarily," for it would seem to be possible to fight off the virus. HIV tests are tests for antibodies to HIV. Antibodies are your body's attempt to fight off the intruding virus. Testing positive means that you have been exposed to HIV.
Most people who test positive, do get AIDS eventually. It often takes time, years. Then you get the disease, your immune system is wiped out, and eventually you die, usually of pneumonia or some other disease. If you test positive for HIV, you should probably be retested, by someone else, just to be sure, as testing positive has just become a very important event in your life. Although they are rare, mistakes happen; people have tested positive and then later tested negative.
To get AIDS, you must share someone else's blood. Drug users who share needles are at the greatest risk of getting AIDS. Male homosexuals (and others involved in anal intercourse) are next at risk. It is possible to get AIDS from straight sex. Transfusions have been a leading means of being infected in the past. Donated blood is now carefully tested for HIV. But there is still some risk. Surgeons who cut themselves during surgery, and medical people who accidentally stick themselves with needles, can also get AIDS. Expectant mothers can pass AIDS on to their unborn children.
AIDS is an acronym for "acquired immune deficiency syndrome." HIV is an abbreviation for "human immuno-deficiency virus."
If you test negative, you probably have not been exposed to HIV. But, it may just be too early to tell. So a test at a later time may be necessary.