HIV/AIDS:

Symptoms

Early Symptoms

In the initial stages of HIV infection, most people will have very few, if any, symptoms. Within a month or two after infection, individuals may experience a flu-like illness, including:

Fever, Headache, Tiredness, Enlarged lymph nodes in the neck and groin area

These symptoms usually disappear within a week to a month and are often mistaken for another viral infection, such as influenza (flu). However, during this period people are highly infectious because HIV is present in large quantities in genital fluids and blood. Some people infected with HIV may experience more severe symptoms initially or a longer duration of clinical symptoms, while others may remain symptom-free for 10 years or more.

Later Symptoms

During the late stages of HIV infection, the virus severely weakens the immune system, and people infected with the virus may experience the following symptoms:
Rapid weight loss
Recurring fever or profuse night sweats
Extreme and unexplained fatigue
Prolonged swelling of the lymph glands in the armpits, groin or neck
Diarrhea that lasts for more than a week
Sores of the mouth, anus or genitals
Pneumonia
Red, brown, pink or purplish blotches on or under the skin or inside the mouth, nose or eyelids
Memory loss, depression and other neurological disorders.

Each of these symptoms can be related to other illnesses. The only way to determine if you are infected with HIV is to get tested.

Diagnosis

Diagnosis can be made either by routine testing or in emergency condition rapid HIV testing like in post exposure (medical personnel stuck by sharp instruments, sexual assault, bite by HIV positive person There are several test available like ELISA, western blot and RNA PCR.

Treatment

Currently there are over 2 dozen antiretroviral medicines are approved by the US Food and drug administration. These medicines do not cure HIV or AIDS rather they suppress the virus from multiplying and reducing the viral count the body. in this way these medicines indirectly decreases the effects of the virus and its debilitating complications. in this way the patients lives a longer and healthier life with less complications.

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