Early and regular treatment can help you stay healthy and keep your baby safe. If you’re pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant and you have or think you may have HIV, tell your health care provider right way. Treatment for HIV during pregnancy can help protect your baby from infection. More than 1.1 million people in the United States have HIV, and about 1 in 4 are women (25 percent). Testing for HIV is important because you may not know you’re infected until you get sick. If you have HIV and get early and regular treatment, you can live nearly as long as someone without HIV. There’s no cure for HIV, but it can be treated. It may take months or years for HIV to develop into AIDs. People with AIDS get sick with diseases that the immune system normally can fight, like pneumonia and certain cancers and infections. It’s the most severe stage of HIV infection. AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. In the United States, it spreads mainly through unprotected sex or sharing drug needles with an infected person. It’s a sexually transmitted infection because you can get it by having unprotected sex with someone who’s infected. HIV spreads through infected body fluids, like blood, semen and breast milk. If you don’t have it, you’re HIV-negative. These cells help your immune system fight disease.
Once HIV is in your blood, it controls and kills CD4 cells (also called T cells). In a healthy person, the immune system protects the body from infections, cancers and some diseases. HIV is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system.
HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus.