HIV/AIDS | HIV Testing

What Are HIV and AIDS?
HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. It Is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Usually a person has the virus for months or years before any signs of Illness appear. It slowly weakens the body's ability to fight off Illness. People with AIDS can have serious infections and cancers. These illnesses make them very sick and can eventually kill them.

How does someone get HIV?
HIV spreads through blood, semen, vaginal fluids or breast milk from infected people to uninfected people. People get HIV from contact with these fluids. Contact can come from unsafe sex. It can also come from sharing used needles and syringes. Infected women can pass the virus to their babies during pregnancy, childbirth and breast feeding. Some people who received blood products from 1978 to 1985 received infected blood. Now blood banks test all blood for HIV before they use it.

People do not become Infected with HIV through everyday casual contact with people at school, work, home or anywhere else. The virus is not spread from contact with sweat, tears, saliva, or a casual kiss from an infected person (deep, or "French" kissing is not advised). Nor can it be contracted from contact with forks, cups, clothes, phones, toilet seats or other things used by someone who is infected with HIV. People do not become infected from eating food made by an HIV-Infected person. And to date, people have not become Infected with HIV through bug bites.

How can I avoid becoming Infected?
The best way to avoid getting HIV Is to avoid activities that allow the virus to be passed to you. By using the following suggestions, you will lower your risk of getting HIV.

• The only way to avoid sexual exposure to HIV is to have sex in a monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner, or to abstain.

• If you are not in such a relationship, and engage in sex, you should use a latex condom correctly every time you have sex.

• Do not share needles, syringes or injection equipment.

Why should I get tested?
You cannot always tell by looking at someone whether he or she has an HIV Infection. The virus may take time to show Its effects. A person can have HIV for ten years or more before the symptoms of AIDS appear. Anyone can have the virus without knowing it. The only way to be sure, for yourself and your loved ones, Is to take the test.

It is important to find out If you have HIV so that you do not give It to someone else. lf you know you have HIV, you can avoid any activity that may pass it on.

It is important to find out If you have HIV so that you can receive good medical care. There are medicines that can help keep you healthy even though you carry the HIV virus.

What should I know before I test?
Your health care provider Is the best person to answer your questions about HIV, the OraSure HIV- I antibody test, and other testing options.

You have a choice of the type of test to use. The presence of HIV antibody testing can be performed on either an OraSure specimen or a blood specimen. Ask your health care provider for the Information you need to make good choices.

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