Do you need some information about HIV/AIDS?
Persons infected with HIV have the virus in the body fluids such as blood, semens, vaginal secretions and breast milk.
A person is infected with AIDS when the virus gets into the blood.
You can contract the virus of HIV in the following ways:
a. Small wounds in a vagina, a rectum, a mouth, and on a penis; b. Intravenous injections with a needle contaminated by the virus of HIV;
c. A wound on the skin.
However, main ways in which most of people can be infected with HIV are the following:
- Unprotected sexual intercourse (through vaginal or anal sex) with an infected partner.
- Sharing needles or other skin-piercing equipment with an infected person.
c. Transmission from an infected woman to her baby during pregnancy, delivery, and breastfeeding .
Would you like to know if you are HIV positive and where to get HIV test?
There isn’t any sign to show you that you have been infected by HIV. Even if you feel perfectly well, you may have been infected by HIV.
If you know that you have been at risk of HIV transmission: unprotected sexual intercourse, use of piercing equipment (razor blade, non sterile needles), blood transfusions, you should have an HIV test as soon as possible. You can get tested for HIV at voluntary counseling and testing sites inyour provinces ( Consult the list of VCT in Rwanda ).
It is important to get tested for HIV in a place which provides counseling because trained counselors will explain you what your results of the test mean, they will advise you how you will protect yourself or they will guide you to health facilities for care if you are HIV positive.
The NACC hotline works from 7 A.M to 8 P.M and answers the questions posed by the population on HIV infection over a free telephone number. Please contact us to the following phone numbers:
- +250 3334 (mobile telephone)
- +250 3335 (mobile telephone)
- +250 18 (internal telephone)
It is better to know whether you are HIV positive or not; persons who are not informed that they are not infected with HIV do not pay attention when they are at risk of HIV transmission.
Do you know the difference between AIDS and HIV?
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus known to cause AIDS
(Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome)
When a person is infected with HIV, the virus enters the body, makes new copies of it and damages immune cells which normally protect the living organism against diseases. Then the immune system is attacked and becomes unable to protect the body and the living organ can be vulnerable to a range of opportunistic infections.
We talk of AIDS when a person infected with HIV shows some symptoms and opportunistic infections.
How to know that a person is infected with HIV/AIDS?
You can not say that a person is HIV positive by just looking at him/her. An HIV positive person may look perfectly well; however, any person infected with HIV/AIDS may infect others even if he does not show any symptom.
If today, you are not sexually active, you are out of the common way of getting infected with HIV. Therefore, you have to pay attention whenever you decide to have sexual intercourse. Protect yourself, and avoid getting contaminated.
Rules for "safe sexual intercourse"
- Get tested for HIV with your partner before having sex.
- Use condoms when you have sex with a partner you do not know if he/she is HIV positive or not.
Condoms when used properly protect you from getting infected with HIV/STI at 99% of cases.
Is there any cure for HIV/AIDS?
AIDS is a dreadful disease which has neither cure nor vaccine. However, today, there are antiretroviral drugs which slow the progression of HIV in the body. This prolongs life expectancy of people living with HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, antiretroviral drugs are very expensive and have side effects on the body of persons living with HIV/AIDS.
Moreover, since the virus regularly changes its genetic form, takes rapid mutations and evades the body’s defences, drugs become inefficient.
Accordi ng to the World Health Organization (WHO), resistance to antiretroviral drugs in countries where they are available many years ago varies from 5 to 25% for patients under treatment. A study carried out at Boston (in the USA) in 1999, revealed that 18% of the newly tested individuals lived with a virus which took mutations and had resistance. Recent data from 17 European countries indicated that 10% of patients under treatment lived with the virus whichresisted to drugs.
A lesson to learn
The use of a condom is the best way to be safe. Never have unprotected sexual intercourse with a partner you do not know whether he/she is HIV positive or not.
Do you know that sexually transmitted infections may increase the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS?
Sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, genital herpes or canker increase the risk of contracting HIV because the virus of HIV can pass into the body through lesions and scratches caused by those diseases on genital organs.
Several studies have shown that people suffering from sexually transmitted infections have more risks of getting infected with HIV when they have sexual intercourse.
How to avoid contracting HIV?
Have always protected sexual intercourse with a partner you know if he/she is HIV positive or not.
Do you know what to do when you are HIV positive?
Take all necessary precautions of protecting your health as soon as you get informed about your serology status. When you are HIV positive, ask your health care centre, in a place you got tested for HIV, to tell you how to follow-up counseling, care, and treatment. However, it is best, at once, to follow medical professionals’ advice (doctors or nurses) who have given you test results. They will tell you how you should protect yourself against opportunistic infections. The advice concerns nutrition, behavioral change, and antiretroviral drugs. When you know that you are HIV positive, you should take precautions of protecting yourself and avoiding contaminating others.
Please contact us over a free hotline number to know health care centres which deal with voluntary counseling and testing in your province.
