Sida

A Closer Look at AIDS

Have you ever wonder what AIDS stands for? … Sure I bet you had heard it a lot of times on the news, school, work or other places; but do you know what itreally means. AIDS stands for Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. This is a disease that attacks the human immune system and makes it veryvulnerable. For person suffering from AIDS it is more likely to suffer from infections and as the time passes its harder to recover from them.

Many people think that HIV and AIDSare two different diseases this is a common mistake. The truth is that HIV is the way that AIDS begins. HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, and this is the virus that causesAIDS in the humans. In other words you can suffer from having HIV and not having AIDS but you can’t have AIDS without have HIV in your system. This virus is contracted from sharingbodily fluids with an infected person. Having unprotected sex can infect you, and things like: kissing, lactating to a baby, getting an infected blood transfusion and using infectedneedles.

Here in Puerto Rico they are reported many cases of AIDS. Many of these cases are result of using infected needles because they are drug addicts, but also many cases ofcontraction by sex were reported. During the years the deaths in Puerto Rico are lower thanks to the department of health and the federal funds and to having people educated aboutAIDS. The department of health has many divisions towards the prevention, treatment and education of HIV/AIDS.

If you are curious about and want to get more educated or if you areinfected and you want to get help of the government you can visit the Department of health Internet site:

http://www.salud.gov.pr/Datos/ProgramaETSVIHSIDA/Pages/default.aspx