A healthy body is equipped with CD4 helper cells (CD4 cells). These cells help the immune system to function normally and to fight certain types of infections. They do this by acting as messengers to other types of immune system cells, telling them to become active and to the fight against an invasion of germs.
HIV attaches to these CD4 cells, infecting them, and uses them as a place to multiply. To do so, the virus destroys the ability of infected cells to do their job in the immune system. The body loses the ability to fight many infections.
Because their immune systems are weakened, people who have AIDS are unable to fight many infections, especially tuberculosis and other types of infections if not rare lung (such as pneumocystis carinii pneumonia) covering the surface of the brain (meningitis), or the brain itself (encephalitis). People who have AIDS tend to take more sick, especially if they are not properly taking antiviral drugs.
AIDS can affect all organs. The immune defect caused by too small a number of CD4 cells also allows certain cancers that are stimulated by the viral disease occur - for AIDS patients obtain forms of lymphoma and a rare tumor of blood vessels in the skin called Kaposi's sarcoma. Because AIDS is a deadly disease, it is important for doctors to detect HIV infection as soon as possible so that a person can take medication to delay the onset of AIDS.
HIV attaches to these CD4 cells, infecting them, and uses them as a place to multiply. To do so, the virus destroys the ability of infected cells to do their job in the immune system. The body loses the ability to fight many infections.
Because their immune systems are weakened, people who have AIDS are unable to fight many infections, especially tuberculosis and other types of infections if not rare lung (such as pneumocystis carinii pneumonia) covering the surface of the brain (meningitis), or the brain itself (encephalitis). People who have AIDS tend to take more sick, especially if they are not properly taking antiviral drugs.
AIDS can affect all organs. The immune defect caused by too small a number of CD4 cells also allows certain cancers that are stimulated by the viral disease occur - for AIDS patients obtain forms of lymphoma and a rare tumor of blood vessels in the skin called Kaposi's sarcoma. Because AIDS is a deadly disease, it is important for doctors to detect HIV infection as soon as possible so that a person can take medication to delay the onset of AIDS.
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