How Can You Contract HIV?

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may be difficult to contract, but consider how difficult it is to treat the disease (AIDS)!

 

Virus HIV is mostly transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse. (Photoxpress)

How can you contract HIV?

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is very difficult to contract. The infection is so widespread only because transmission of the virus is connected with sexual intercourse. Even today the lack of knowledge about the nature of the disease contributes to people taking HIV too lightly. 

Most people don’t even believe that the virus is deadly. They may know people who are infected and who, more or less, lead a normal life for years. And when the infected die, they see their death as simply caused by the flu, tuberculosis, cancer or similar diseases. It is therefore important to understand how the virus functions and spreads. You will contract HIV if it will find a way from the “inside” of one body to the “inside” of yours.

How is virus HIV transmitted?

You can contract HIV via blood, seminal fluid and vaginal discharges. The virus is also present in saliva, but only in small quantities and there hasn’t been a case yet where a person would get infected through saliva.

Most people contract HIV through blood or semen. Thus, in risky sexual intercourse the possibility of transmitting these two fluids has to be eliminated. The most reliable protection is provided by condoms, which effectively protect the whole surface of the penis against vaginal discharge, and they protect the vagina against semen.

Ejaculation on the skin, or the external contact of semen or blood with the skin, are dangerous if there are any wounds on the surface of the body where the virus can enter it. The skin effectively protects the body against an intrusion of the virus into the body, and the same is true of the vaginal mucosa and the skin on the penis, but to a far lesser extent.

Unprotected sexual intercourse puts your life at risk 

By having unprotected sexual intercourse, you are putting your life at risk, although it is theoretically possible that you still don’t contract HIV. Try to play Russian roulette with a real bullet and you will get a realistic feeling of what you are actually playing with every time you have unprotected sexual intercourse.

To conclude, the most pessimistic people fear the arrival of the day when the HIV virus will become immune to the mosquito’s digestion. A world epidemic would then become inevitable. For now, mosquitoes can drink HIV-infected blood, but they digest the virus. We wish them good appetite.

Find out more about sexually transmitted diseases in the Encyclopedia of Sexuality.

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