General Article What are HIV and AIDS?

Topic Selected: AIDS & HIV
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Although they are often mixed up these two words have different meanings. ‘HIV’ is the name of a virus, whereas ‘AIDS’ is a name for a collection of illnesses caused by this virus

What is HIV?

HIV stands for ‘Human Immuno-deficiency Virus’.

‘Immunodeficiency’ refers to how this virus weakens a person’s immune system, the part of the body that fights off diseases.

HIV has been in humans for many decades but was only identified in the early 80s.

What does the virus do?

Some people notice no sym...

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