Why don’t we see AIDS patients around us? The reason is these two points

On June 5, 1981, the U.S. CDC reported the world's first case of AIDS, and my country discovered its first imported case of AIDS at Peking Union Medical College Hospital in 1985. As of the end of 2020, my country had a total of approximately 1.03 million confirmed cases of HIV infection, with an infection rate of 9 per 10,000 people and a total of 320,000 deaths.

At first glance, this base number seems to be very large, but why don’t we see AIDS patients around us?

First of all, the personal information of HIV-infected people is strictly confidential. According to the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases" and the "Regulations on the Prevention and Control of AIDS", the personal information of HIV-infected people must be kept strictly confidential. It is illegal for medical staff or friends of HIV-infected people to inform others of the infected person's infection information without the informed consent of the infected person, resulting in the leakage of the infected person's information.

The transmission of AIDS requires close contact, and there are three ways of transmission: sexual transmission, blood transmission, and mother-to-child transmission. When AIDS was first discovered, most of the transmission routes were drug use through shared syringes and prostitution, which are ugly and despised by society. Because of this, if the information of an infected person is leaked, the infected person can basically be declared "socially dead."

In the past, some infected people chose to end their lives after being diagnosed, which is indeed regrettable and lamentable. There have also been cases where some infected people maliciously retaliated against society after learning that their infection information had been leaked. In order to avoid this, the information of HIV-infected people is strictly kept confidential.

So around us, you don't know who is infected with HIV.

Second, after being infected with HIV, there are no clinical symptoms or external manifestations during the long incubation period. The average incubation period of AIDS is about 2 to 10 years, with the shortest being half a year and the longest being 25 years. During the incubation period, the infected person can live and work without any symptoms or signs.

Many people hope to judge whether they or others are infected with HIV through external manifestations or signs. This is not advisable! First, there will be no clinical manifestations during the incubation period, and second, the so-called clinical symptoms are not typical.

Because of this, even if an HIV-infected person sits next to you, you cannot tell that he is infected!

The number of HIV-infected people is relatively large, but there is no need to be afraid or panic. AIDS can be transmitted only through blood, sexual transmission, and mother-to-child transmission. In all three transmission routes, one must come into contact with the infected person's blood, semen, vaginal secretions, amniotic fluid, or breast milk, and these body fluids are generally not exposed in daily behavior. The body fluids that can be exposed, such as saliva, tears, urine, and sweat, do not contain HIV, so they will not cause infection. Hugging, shaking hands, eating, studying, working, and other daily behaviors with HIV-infected people will not cause HIV infection!

I hope everyone will pay attention to AIDS, prevent AIDS, and not panic about AIDS!