What is the hiv virus

The HIV virus is actually what we often call AIDS. When it comes to AIDS, everyone may be familiar with it. AIDS is highly contagious, and there is currently no good treatment for AIDS. In addition, in life, most people don’t know much about AIDS. Often when AIDS is mentioned, they think this disease is particularly scary. The following is a detailed introduction to what the HIV virus is.

What is AIDS

What is AIDS? AIDS, also known as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), is an infectious disease caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, which is mainly transmitted through sexual intercourse, blood contact or mother-to-child contact. After being infected with HIV, the body's immune function will be suppressed, which can easily lead to viral infection and tumor occurrence.

When a person is infected with HIV, it will cause damage to T lymphocytes, leading to persistent immunodeficiency, opportunistic infections and rare malignant tumors in multiple organs, and ultimately death.

How did AIDS come about?

The lipoprotein envelope of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) contains two glycoproteins, gp120 and gp41. gp120 has affinity for the CD4 glycoprotein on the surface of lymphocytes and can bind specifically to it; gp41 mediates the fusion of the viral envelope with the host cell membrane. Therefore, after HIV reaches the blood through damaged skin and mucous membranes or through other pathways such as blood, it can selectively invade CD4+ lymphocytes.

After HIV invades CD4+ lymphocytes, it synthesizes DNA under the action of viral reverse transcriptase and integrates into the chromosomes of host cells. The integrated viral DNA can replicate inside the cells, form complete virus bodies and be released outside the cells, causing cell death and infecting new cells. It can also be in a latent infection state and enter daughter cells as the cells divide.

In the early stages of infection, HIV replicates in large quantities, producing viremia, and the capsid antigen p24 may be expressed, with clinical manifestations being symptoms of acute HIV infection. Due to the massive replication of HIV in cells, CD4+ lymphocytes are damaged and die, and CD4+T cells are significantly reduced. However, under the immune action of the body, CD8+CTL is activated, killing HIV-infected cells and producing anti-HIV antibodies. Viremia is quickly cleared and the number of CD4+ lymphocytes recovers.

However, HIV is not completely killed and enters a state of persistent latent infection, where HIV replicates at a low level and the clinical manifestations are asymptomatic HIV infection. As HIV continues to replicate and spread, CD4+ lymphocytes continue to die, and this cycle repeats over and over again, eventually leading to CD4+ lymphocyte depletion, severe damage to the immune function, and complications of various opportunistic pathogens and tumors. The clinical manifestations are AIDS, and ultimately death.

The origins of AIDS

AIDS originated in Africa and was later brought to the United States by immigrants. Human AIDS virus may have originated from wild chimpanzees in Africa. But until now, scientists have not been able to figure out how HIV is transmitted from chimpanzees to humans. Most scientists believe that humans were most likely infected by being bitten by an infected chimpanzee or by accidentally contracting the virus when the chimpanzee was slaughtered. The HIV virus then mutates in the human body and evolves into the HIV virus that can be transmitted to other people. Most importantly, the virus is significantly more deadly to humans, whereas chimpanzees generally do not suffer any serious consequences from HIV infection.