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HIV/AIDS
A
Helping Hand for the Immune System
AIDS, or Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome, is a disease that reduces the
body’s ability to defend itself. Human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes
AIDS, invades key immune cells called T lymphocytes
and causes the entire immune system to malfunction.
Once this occurs, a person living with HIV/AIDS has
to stay as healthy and fit as possible because his
or her system could eventually become overwhelmed
with serious infections which are the leading cause
of AIDS deaths.
No one knows where the virus that causes HIV/AIDS
first developed, but documented cases appeared in
1981 with suspected unidentified cases in the 1970s.
The virus spreads through sexual or blood-to-blood
contact. It may take up to four weeks after exposure
to the virus for antibodies to show up in the blood,
which means that the body has recognized the invader
and attempted to mount a defense against it.
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