The development of HIV infection: that it affects, and what's not

The development of HIV infection and its rate depends on many factors, not all of them are known to medicine. Nevertheless, already aware of some causes more rapid development of the disease, or longer maintain health. Some of them are impossible to control, the others may affect not only physicians but also people with HIV.

Changeable forecast

Until 1996, it was thought that 100% of people with HIV develop AIDS in the period from 18 months to 25 years. But even those figures were unreliable. The reasons for this were several:

* Some people develop AIDS more quickly, others slowly.
* The first assessment of progression of HIV infection have appeared as early as the beginning of the epidemic. Then the diagnosis put people in the early stages of AIDS, and it is not surprising that almost all of them have developed AIDS in almost a year.
* With the passage of time, it became clear that most HIV-positive people remain healthy much longer than 1-2 years after infection. Moreover, people can stay healthy from the very beginning of the epidemic, so it was impossible to determine how long, in principle, can continue silent period.

Before the advent of anti-retroviral drugs, scientists have been able to form a picture of "natural evolution" of HIV infection. Left untreated, the average life expectancy of people with the time of HIV infection was 13 years old. Naturally, this meant that someone stage of AIDS appeared before someone at a later date.

Before the therapy the majority of HIV-positive people develop AIDS stage a few years after HIV transmission. However, modern medicine has become not only the ability to control the development of HIV infection, stopping it using drugs, but also identify some factors affecting the changes in immune status and viral load in HIV.

These factors affect how quickly or slowly growing HIV infection, although they themselves do not cause disease. The presence or absence of additional factors did not "guarantee" that people quickly sick. On the development of AIDS affects several factors, many of them are still not known.