Medical Technology
and Bioethics
     Emmanuel Quiopa
        II-BS MeT
You may not know,
                    What is HIV?
                    FACTS                                              How Is HIV Spread?
                      HIV is a virus that attacks the immune sys-
 because you dis-   tem, our body’s natural defense against ill-
                    ness.
                                                                       HIV is spread primarily through contact with the fol-
                                                                       lowing body fluids:
  courage… so       If HIV is left untreated, a person’s immune
                    system will get weaker and weaker until it can
                    no longer fight off life-threatening infections
                                                                       Blood (including menstrual blood)
                                                                       Semen (“cum”) and other male sexual fluids
                                                                       ("precum")
come up and know    and diseases.
                    Testing regularly for HIV means you can get
                                                                       Vaginal fluids
                                                                       Breast milk
                    antiretroviral treatment if you need it and stay
   your status      healthy.
                    AIDS describes a set of symptoms and illness-
                                                                       For people living with HIV, taking HIV drugs and re-
                                                                       ducing their viral load makes these fluids far less
                    es that happen at the final stage of HIV infec-    likely to transmit HIV to others. This is called HIV
                    tion, if left untreated.                           treatment as prevention. If a person living with HIV
                                                                       takes HIV drugs and maintains an undetectable viral
                                                                       load (too low to be measured with standard tests),
                    What is AIDS?                                      their semen or vaginal fluids will not pass HIV on to
                    Basic facts about AIDS                             their sexual partner. The most common ways HIV is
                    AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency         spread from person-to-person is
                    syndrome; it’s also called advanced HIV in-        through unprotected sex (no condoms, other barri-
                    fection or late-stage HIV.                         ers, or treatment-as-prevention methods
                    AIDS is a set of symptoms and illnesses that       used), sharing needles used for injecting drugs,
                    develop as a result of advanced HIV infection      and mother-to-child (during pregnancy, birth, or
                    which has destroyed the immune system.             breast-feeding).
                    Fewer people develop AIDS now because
                    treatment for HIV means that more people are
                    staying well.
                    Although there is no cure for HIV, with the
                    right treatment and support, people living
                    with HIV can enjoy long and healthy lives. To
                    do this, it’s especially important to commit to
                    taking treatment correctly.