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What is HIV?

Written on December 28, 2009 by moe2love

Category: Biology

I have only recently discovered how the HIV virus works, which is very disappointing on my part, but it is time I share this information with all of you who don’t know how it affects us.

Understanding Viruses

The first thing to understand is that viruses aren’t out there to destroy the entire human race – they are simply trying to survive like we are.  This is why we often hear biologists talking about viruses from an empathetic point of view – almost as if they understand them and don’t blame them for what they do.  Well, just like you can’t blame a playful cat for being a cat, or a mocking monkey for being a monkey, you can’t blame a virus for being an organism and trying to survive.   In order to combat against viruses, medical researchers must often look at their point of view.

If you don’t know, viruses essentially invade the cells in your body and take them over, using them for their own needs.  A virus won’t survive if it doesn’t infect a cell.  The good thing for us is that we don’t like it when viruses survive, so our body has a complex immune system for defending against viruses.  What we have in our immune system are these things called T-Cells, which attack and destroy other cells that are infected with viruses.  There is a special kind of T-Cell that helps other T-Cells function properly.  This kind of cell is called a helper T-Cell, and is very important to our immune system.

What HIV Does

So now with that biology information, imagine this–a virus that has evolved cleverly enough to infect the very important helper T-Cells.  That means that the helper T-Cells don’t function properly, and thus killer T-Cells don’t survive to replicate, and our immune defense system is severely weakened, succumbing us to even the weaker viruses such as colds.  This is how the Human Immunodeficiency Virus works.

And here’s another interesting fact: there is no cure for colds.  We just depend on our body (and namely, our immune

Examples of the Beginning Signs of HIV Infection

system), to fight and demolish the cold virus.  That’s important regarding HIV because if AIDS develops, than even the common cold can be seriously crippling.  As the immune system is weakened, normally harmless diseases can destroy the entire body.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but AIDS is serious.  It’s not just something that you see on a TV in a school classroom, it’s something that is being experienced by people closer to you than you think.  You have to watch who you sleep with, and more importantly, USE protection.  AIDS isn’t something you want to get, and it also isn’t the ONLY thing you can get by having unprotected intercourse.  Be safe.  Carry a condom.

*Stanford is doing some heavy duty research on AIDS.  Check out their progress here!