HIV in people

In this section you’ll read about what it means to have an HIV infection, and some of the problems people living with HIV and AIDS must face.

How the body responds to HIV

When a person becomes infected with HIV the body responds by trying to eliminate the virus. This is the job of the immune system, and one way the immune system tries to get rid of viruses like HIV, is by making antibodies.

Antibodies are proteins that circulate in your blood, and are an important part of your immune system. When an antibody comes across a germ in your blood, it may stick to the germ. Other immune system cells eventually destroy this antibody-and-germ pair. So, antibodies act like flags, marking germs as foreign so they can be recognized and destroyed.

There are four stages of HIV infection:

1. Primary stage
2. Asymptomatic stage
3. Symptomatic stage (early HIV disease)
4. AIDS (advanced HIV disease)

You’ll read more about these stages next.