How does HIV affect the body?
Normally, the human immune system is the body’s protection against bacterias, viruses, etc.; it is like a coat of armor. When HIV enters the body, it starts poking holes in the armor. Eventually, the armor becomes very weak and unable to protect the body. Once the armor is very weak or is gone, the person is said to have AIDS. An AIDS diagnosis is generally made when either the body’s protective T-cells drop below a certain level, or the HIV-positive individual begins to experience opportunistic infections. An opportunistic infection is an infection that would not normally affect an otherwise healthy person. Oftentimes, it’s these infections that are the cause of illness or death in HIV-positive individuals – not the virus itself. If people do not get any treatment for HIV disease, it takes an average of 8-10 years to progress from HIV to AIDS.
HIV destroys a particular variety of white blood cells that are essential for destroying disease-causing germs. There are several varieties of white blood cells in the body. Of these, lymphocytes form about twenty-five percent of the total white blood cell count. They normally increase in number in response to any infection. There are two types of lymphocytes: (a) B cells and (b) T cells. When the B cells come in contact with a disease-causing agent such as bacteria or virus, they secrete large volumes of antibodies – chemical substances that can destroy the disease-causing germs. The main functions of B cells are to search identify and then bind with the disease causing germs. The T cells are lymphocytes that have travelled through a small gland called the thymus gland, which is situated in the middle and upper part of the bony cage of the chest. When a disease -causing germ enters the body, the T cells produce several new copies of itself. Each T cell contains chemical substances tha
