Causes of AIDS | 3 most important routes for transmission of AIDS
Introduction
Since the recognition of HIV, 85.6 million people have become infected with it, 40.4 million people have died of it, and 39 million people are currently suffering from it. This is one of those disease whose cure is still not found. Taking medications or therapy can make an infected person's life a little longer but he/she will never get rid of HIV all through their life.
It passes from one person to another only due to carelessness and this carelessness can be shown by both, either from the doctor or from us. If you are curious to know, just read the whole article to know how HIV/AIDS travels from one person to another.
How is AIDS transmitted?
There are three most important ways for HIV to travel from one person to another.
1. Unprotected sex
Among the three, this is one of the factors that contributes a lot to the flow of HIV. Although it is not sex-specific, it is found that women are more prone to this disease, this is explained as receptive sex being riskier than insertive sex, here receptive indicates female, and of course, insertive is for male.
If a man is infected and has a detectable viral load then his semen contains HIV too. During sex, it can pass to his partner not only through semen but through pro-cum too. Similarly for females, if she is infected and has a detectable virus load, then she can transmit it through her vaginal secretions to her partner.
Low-income countries often report more cases of HIV as compared to high-income countries and you know why? because of not using protection or medicines to treat HIV.
This transmission not only passes to opposite-sex people but also the same sex and you will be surprised to know that there are more chances for homosexual people (gay) to get infected as compared to heterosexual people.
Anal sex carries a very high risk of transmission, estimated to be between 1.4% and 1.7% per act in both heterosexual and gay relationships.
There are very very less chances that HIV can travel through oral sex, and that's how its probability is considered almost "nil", but for your information, there are some cases where it is seen that oral sex was the medium of transmission, so we cannot fully ignore even if it is considered nil.
2. Through body fluids
This factor is also very important and yeah it contributes a lot to the flow of HIV across the world. The transfusion of HIV-infected blood to a normal person can cause it. This factor becomes more important in developing countries as compared to developed ones, straightly I want to say that it is the HIV screening process of blood that should be done before transfusion, and in underdeveloped countries, this process is often neglected.
Drug abusers are the ones who are also very prone to it if they take drugs intravenously. For example- if any HIV-infected person takes the drug intravenously and his friend also takes the drug intravenously through the same syringe as used by his friend, then there is a high chance that this person get infected with AIDS.
and there is one more way in which a person gets infected, that is through organ or tissue transplantation, however, this process is considered very rare. Now it's homework for you to find out why?.
3. From infected mother to child
If the mother is HIV positive then there is a chance that her child also gets affected. But you know there is a case study where I found out that an HIV-positive woman gave birth to three children and all three were HIV-negative. If it is treated before the birth of the baby then the chances of transmission are about 15% and for breastfeeding it is 30%. Without treatment, the chances increase by 5%.
Hope you love this article, you can let me know about the concern thing through the comments.
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