The Sunday Times, South Africa - November 14, 1999
Today about 33,4 million people worldwide have HIV/AIDS. About a third of those infected are between the ages of 10 and 24. Nearly 11 million Africans have died from the disease and a further 10 million are expected to die by 2005. Almost four million South Africans have been infected with HIV since the epidemic began in 1982.
It is important for your children's health and safety to know the facts. What you teach them will depend on how old they are.
The AIDS virus is called HIV. A virus is like a germ. Viruses and germs give us flu, diarrhoea, infections, TB and other illnesses. HIV is different from other viruses because there is no cure for it. Once the virus is in you body, nothing can heal it.
How can you get infected?
Coughing, toilet seats, sharing drinking mugs or food, kissing or touching someone who is infected will not spread HIV. HIV/AIDS is spread mostly by unprotected sex. This means sex without a condom.
Sharing dirty needles or blades is another way to get HIV/AIDS. Health workers must be very careful to sterilise their instruments or to use new ones for each person. HIV can also be passed from an infected mother to her child during pregnancy, birth and breast-feeding.
It is easy to get HIV if you already have a sexually transmitted disease (STD). If there are any symptoms of an STD it is important to have them treated by a clinic immediately.
What is HIV/AIDS? If someone is infected with the virus, we say they are HIV positive, or HIV+. This is not the same as AIDS. People can live with HIV in their bodies for years before getting sick with AIDS. You cannot tell if a person has HIV.
HIV attacks the healthy cells that usually protect our bodies from diseases (our immune systems). After some time the body cannot fight infections because the defence system becomes too weak. It is then that we say the person is sick with AIDS.
Usually, if you get sick your immune system fights the illness and you get better. When you have AIDS, your immune system cannot protect your body and eventually you die from the sicknesses you get, like TB, cancer or pneumonia.
How to protect your children: It is important for your children to know about HIV/AIDS and how to use a condom. Condoms are the only way to prevent HIV/AIDS if you are having sex.
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Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 1999. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
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