Introduction

In this section you’ll read about:

• What the abbreviations HIV and AIDS stand for.
• A bit of the history of HIV and AIDS.
• Some of the words used to describe the body and the way it reacts to disease.

What is HIV?

HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which tells you three important things:

• HIV only infects humans, so only people get sick from HIV.
• HIV makes a person sick by weakening the immune system.
• HIV is a virus. A virus is very small germ.

If someone is HIV-positive (or HIV+), it means they have an HIV infection. An HIV infection never goes away.