How to complete self-help once infected by AIDS?

How to complete self-help once infected by AIDS? The longest latency is 20 years! Once exposed to AIDS, how to complete self-help? Because many patients may have no symptoms during the incubation period…

AIDS is one of the most terrifying diseases encountered by human beings. Even though drugs to suppress HIV are available in medicine, it is still very difficult to completely eliminate HIV.

Infectious diseases are scary, that is, “symptoms can drive treatment.” Because many patients may have no symptoms during the incubation period…

Round 1 incubation period: up to 20 years!

The incubation period refers to the period of time from being infected with the virus to the appearance of related symptoms. Generally speaking, there is an incubation period of 6 to 8 years after being infected with AIDS. The incubation period can exceed 10 years for a few people, and it can even be as long as 20 years in individual cases.

In the early 1990s, many people were infected with the AIDS virus (HIV) due to irregular blood sampling in some areas of some countries. From 2001 to 2005, many infected people entered the onset period one after another. Through screening of people who used to have irregular blood sampling, many more infected people were found, and some were still in the asymptomatic period, which is what everyone often says Incubation period.

The length of the incubation period of HIV-infected persons varies, and the length of the incubation period is related to factors such as the number of infected viruses, virus types, routes of infection, individual differences in the immune status of the body, nutritional conditions, and living habits.

No symptoms during the incubation period does not mean that the virus does not harm the human body. The virus in the patient will continue to replicate during the incubation period, specifically destroying the body’s CD4+ T lymphocytes (hereinafter referred to as CD4 cells).

Therefore, the immune system of the infected person in the incubation period is continuously being destroyed. The role of CD4 cells in the human immune force is like the information system of the army. Once the number of CD4 cells is reduced, the human immune force will seem to have lost the navigation and command system. The same became the group of dragons without a leader, and the defensive ability was significantly reduced.

With the decline of immune defense ability, the human body will lose the ability to monitor and suppress some pathogens and tumor cells. For example, microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, fungi and even parasites) cannot make waves under the supervision of the human body’s strong immune system, and can only “lurking” silently. The infection caused by this immunodeficiency is called opportunistic infection, and HIV is called “human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).”

Round 2 Current medical technology, There is still no cure!

In fact, the existing antiviral therapy (ART) can only inhibit the replication of HIV and prevent it from destroying the body’s immune cells. However, some of the HIV genes will be integrated into human genes, and they are in a latent state in the human body. They are usually inactive and do not replicate. However, antiviral therapy can do nothing for them. Once the drug is stopped, the latent HIV virus may become active again. Clinically, HIV-infected people need long-term medication.

But reports of healing over the years are not uncommon!

Such as the famous “Berlin patient”. Brown was an HIV-infected person. He underwent chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation because of his leukemia. Surprisingly, he eventually recovered from both leukemia and AIDS. In 2020, another “London patient” was cured of AIDS in the same way.

However, stem cell transplantation is very expensive and very risky. It is necessary to accept stem cell transplantation from special populations to hope for success. This method cannot be replicated.

Occasionally cured cases provide medical scientists with some ideas, but the treatment of AIDS still requires long-term antiviral drugs to achieve “functional cure” by inhibiting the virus. At present, some long-acting antiviral drugs are on the market one after another, the purpose is to reduce the frequency of taking drugs for infected people.

Round 3  Sexual transmission is still the main channel

There is no vaccine for AIDS yet, and AIDS can only be prevented by cutting off the route of transmission.

• 1) Through the screening of pregnant women and mother-to-child blocking technology, the number of mother-to-child transmission in some countries has been very small;
• 2) The state screens blood donors and regulates the use of blood for blood collection, which minimizes the risk of blood transmission.

Therefore, new HIV infections are mainly due to sexual contact and are mainly transmitted from the opposite sex, while the proportion of men who have sex with men is increasing year by year.

Round 4  After AIDS exposure,   How to complete self-help?

Although we have always promoted the need to avoid unclean sex, if you have high-risk sex for various reasons or expose yourself to the risk of HIV infection, how can you help yourself urgently?

In fact, there is a “regret medicine” to take after a behavior that is at risk of AIDS!

Regret medicine is Post-exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) medicine. People who are not infected with HIV can avoid HIV infection to a large extent by taking specific antiviral drugs within 72 hours after having behaviors that are susceptible to HIV infection with those with HIV infection or unknown infection status.

Of course, in addition to sexual behavior, other behaviors that are susceptible to HIV infection, such as sharing syringes and taking drugs, being stabbed and scratched by something with infected blood, can also be prevented by PEP drugs.

Studies have shown that the success rate of PEP is above 80%. The sooner the drug is taken after exposure, the higher the success rate of blocking, the best effect is to take the drug within 2 hours after exposure, and the longest cannot exceed 72 hours. PEP drug regimen is 3 kinds of antiviral drugs, generally recommended is Norfovir (TDF) or Tenofovir alafenamide (TAF), + Emtricitabine (FTC) or Lamivudine (3TC), + Dolutegravir (DTG) or Lategravir Potassium Tablets (RAL), pay attention to taking the medicine every day for 28 consecutive days. Missing or not taking the medicine on time may affect the blocking effect.

Round 5   The disease is terrible, What’s more terrifying is discrimination

It is unfortunate to be infected with HIV, but through standardized treatment, people living with AIDS can completely suppress the virus. As long as the viral load is lower than the lower limit of detection, the damage to the immune system will stop, the infected person can live normally, with little impact on life expectancy, and the infected person who cannot detect the virus is almost non-infectious, and the infected person can study normally. Work, you can also get married and have children.

Regardless of the method of infection, the infected person is the victim of the disease. We should give care and encouragement, let infected people actively receive treatment, and through correct publicity, prevent more people from being infected. Through the joint efforts of medical workers and friends from all walks of life, we will end the AIDS epidemic as soon as possible.

(source:internet, reference only)

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