WHAT IS HIV AND WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT ELENA DI CIOCCIO’S DISEASE?
Cos’è l’HIV and what do we know about HIV positive from which she has been suffering for 21 years now Elena DiCioccio? In recent times, the daughter of Franz, leader and founder of the Premiata Forneria Marconi, has decided to come out by talking about her illness and recounting, first of her in an interview with ‘Le Iene’ and then in a recently published bookthe battle she has been carrying on for some time also trying to raise awareness on the subject and to dismantle fears and false myths around those who, like her, lives with HIV and is cured by trying to lead a normal life. But what do we know about HIV, the so-called human immunodeficiency virus and what exactly is HIV positive?
Let’s go in order and start by saying that HIV (acronym that stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus) it is a lentivirusor a kind of retrovirus, which attacks our immune system and in particular the CD4+ T lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell whose task is to organize the the body’s immune response in the presence of an infection. Once the infection has occurred, the same immune defenses begin to progressively weaken so that our body becomes even more susceptible to so many other infections caused not only by bacteria and viruses but also fungi. Obviously being infected with HIV and being HIV positive does not automatically mean being sick with AIDS which, on the other hand, is only one of the stages of progression of the pathology.
HIV, HIV POSITIVITY AND AIDS: WHAT ARE THEY AND WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES?
If left untreated and properly cared for, in fact the first stage of HIV infection (i.e. the acute phase due to the high circulation of viruses) occurs between two and four weeks after the infection but can also be totally asymptomatic, while stage 2 concerns a phase of clinical latency during which the infection actually becomes chronic: this phase can even last for years, being even characterized by periods of apparent well-being but which, without any treatment, subtly leads to a weakening of the immune system and then to the appearance of the first symptoms. Finally, it stage 3 is about what we call AIDSi.e. the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome: at this point the immune defenses suffer from a serious deficit due to the destruction of linfociti T CD4+ due to HIV.
HIV positive therefore indicates the presence of specific antibodies for HIV in the blood of the infected person who has contracted the infection in the past: ‘being HIV positive’ means having been infected by this Lentivirus but not that you automatically have AIDS, which instead is only one of the stages of progression of the disease. Today there are no vaccines or specific treatments to completely eradicate the infection: the therapies available to us today to treat HIV infection (i.e. the so-called retroviral) they consist of a combination of drugs that aims to block the replication of the virus – very high – and at the same time slow down the destruction of the defenses of the immune system and consequently also the progression of the disease. As with other diseases, also in this case carrying out the HIV test and early diagnosis are important in order not to allow evolution up to stage 3. As far as transmission is concerned, HIV in any of the stages is transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse but also in a ‘vertical’ way from mother to child during pregnancy and of course also through the contact with blood.
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