f a person becomes infected with HIV, does that mean he/she has AIDS?
No. A person can be infected with HIV for many years and yet may remain perfectly healthy. However, the virus gradually multiplies inside the body and eventually destroys the body’s ability to fight off illnesses by weakening the immune system. However, this may happen after many years. A person with HIV may not know s/he is infected but can pass the virus on to other people. Not everyone with HIV infection will get AIDS. AIDS is a group of symptoms that develop during the last stages of HIV infection. A person is said to have AIDS when s/he has tested positive for HIV and displays one or more of the opportunistic infections associated with HIV like TB, continuous diarrhea etc. There are 31 opportunistic infections listed for AIDS.
