World AIDS Day丨Prevent AIDS, not love, let’s learn about AIDS together!

December 1

World AIDS Day

When hearing the word "AIDS", many people avoid it, fearing that they will be infected by shaking hands or breathing the same air with AIDS patients... Is AIDS really that scary? In fact, AIDS is preventable and curable, and we should have a correct understanding of this disease. Today, please follow Yaowa to learn about it!

What is AIDS?

AIDS is also known as "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)". Its virus (HIV) can directly invade the human immune system, interfere with and destroy immune cells, and cause the body to lose its immune function.

Generally speaking, the bodies of AIDS patients are very fragile, and some bacteria and viruses that do not cause disease to healthy people can take advantage of their weakness and cause serious or even incurable diseases in them. The symptoms of AIDS are complex and varied, and the most common ones are: long-term fever, diarrhea, night sweats, weight loss of more than 10%, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes throughout the body, headache, memory loss, epilepsy, dementia, etc.

How to avoid HIV infection?

As an infectious disease, AIDS is mainly transmitted vertically, including blood transmission, sexual transmission and mother-to-child transmission. For example, transfusion of blood products containing infected people, use of incompletely sterilized or unsterilized syringes and needles, sexual intercourse without condoms, childbirth, breastfeeding, etc. may cause HIV to enter the body of the contacted person and cause infection.

Therefore, prevention is very important in daily life, such as not easily accepting blood transfusions and blood products (blood and blood products provided by regular hospitals are usually tested for HIV); not taking drugs and not sharing needles; complying with the regulations of pre-marital health examinations to confirm whether the partner is infected with HIV; being loyal to one sexual partner and not having casual sex; infected women avoiding pregnancy and breastfeeding; try to avoid sharing tools that may pierce the skin, such as toothbrushes, razors, ear piercing needles, tattoo needles, pedicure knives, etc.

How to treat AIDS?

What should you do if you unfortunately get AIDS? You should adjust your mentality and actively take medication.
The main AIDS treatment drugs currently used in clinical practice are:

Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. This is the first class of drugs used to treat AIDS, and representative drugs include zidovudine, lamivudine, abacavir, etc.

Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Representative drugs include efavirenz, nevirapine, rilpivirine, etc.

Protease inhibitors, representative drugs include lopinavir, darunavir, etc.
If you accidentally come into contact with HIV, is there any way to save yourself? The answer is yes: use HIV blocking drugs, and take preventive medication within 2 hours if possible, and preferably not more than 24 hours; even if it exceeds 24 hours, preventive medication is recommended. It is very important for patients to comply with medication during this period, and it needs to be taken continuously for 28 days. Regular review is required on the 14th day and 1, 3, and 6 months after taking the medicine to confirm whether the blocking is successful while monitoring adverse drug reactions.
Knowing this, do you still think you will be infected by shaking hands or breathing the same air with an AIDS patient? Don't worry, of course not!

AIDS is a common challenge facing all of humanity. We need to remain vigilant against AIDS, but we should never exaggerate our fear, let alone discriminate against AIDS patients. What is more terrifying than AIDS itself is ignorance and prejudice. When dealing with AIDS patients, please respect and understand them, show kindness and smile! Don't be indifferent, don't discriminate, don't hurt them!