What is HIV?

When you are infected with HIV, the infection is chronic and lifelong. Without treatment, the HIV virus breaks down the immune system of the body over a long period (from months to years). This means that you get a number of characteristic infections that you cannot fight because you are infected with HIV. Untreated HIV infection causes AIDS.

HIV is a rare sexually transmitted disease in Denmark. However, a few groups experience a greater prevalence of HIV, e.g. men who have sex with men and foreigners from certain regions of Europe, Asia and Africa.

How is HIV transmitted?

HIV is transmitted via blood, semen and pre-semen, vaginal secretions and breast milk. HIV is not transmitted through saliva, tears, sweat, urine or faeces. HIV is therefore transmitted through sexual contact and from mother to child in connection with childbirth and breastfeeding. HIV is not transmitted by kissing and touching, nor is it transmitted via food, water, cutlery or insects.

Condoms and dental dams protect against infection. Combination treatment against HIV also means that those infected with HIV cannot transmit the virus sexually if they are well treated.

Recent studies have shown that HIV-negative people can protect themselves from HIV infection by taking a certain type of medicine that is used in the combination treatment for HIV-infected people. However, the medicine is not approved to protect against infection and you cannot buy or get it as a HIV-negative person.

What are the symptoms of HIV?

 Only approx. half of those infected feel the first symptoms of HIV, which can appear approx. 14 days after infection.

Symptoms can be:

• Flu-like with fever, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, stomach pain, fungus in the mouth, headache, muscle and joint pain, skin rash with red spots and bumps

These symptoms disappear after 2-4 weeks. After a few years, a number of infections and diseases appear, such as genital herpes (herpes genitalis), fungus in the mouth, diarrhoea, pronounced weight loss, fatigue, etc.

When certain symptoms are present, the disease is called AIDS.

How is HIV tested and treated?

The test is a blood test, where most hospitals and testing sites use a combination test that detects both antigen and antibody against HIV. The test can be carried out four weeks after infection. In some places, a test is used that only detects antibodies against HIV, and it can be carried out 2 months after infection.

HIV can be kept down with the so-called combination treatment. The combination treatment consists of at least three different types of medicine that can keep HIV in check. By keeping the amount of virus down in the HIV-infected person, the risk of infecting others is also reduced or eliminated. There is no vaccine against HIV.

There is an acute treatment against HIV called PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis). PEP is a preventive, but harsh, tablet treatment that is only given to people who have a predominant risk of infection, such as e.g. if they stick themselves with a needle or if they have unsafe sex with an untreated HIV-infected person. PEP is not given after regular, unsafe intercourse.

What are the consequences of HIV?

If you become infected with HIV, you always have the disease, and without treatment there is a high risk of dying from the disease.

With treatment, however, the risk of dying is significantly reduced and very few people infected with HIV today die of HIV or AIDS.