HIV and AIDS: What's the difference?

Many of us, me included, use the terms AIDS and HIV interchangeably, not fully realizing how very different the two are. HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is the virus that can evolve into AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), while AIDS is the syndrome in which the sufferer’s immune system stops working which often proves fatal to the carrier. Without any type of medication, the average time for HIV to develop into AIDS is approximately nine or ten years. Once a patient is diagnosed with AIDS, the average survival span is just over nine months. So, at what point does HIV spiral into AIDS?

Research from an August 2007 study done by UC Irvine demonstrates how HIV transitions into AIDS and offers a way to perhaps halt this transition in HIV patients. One breakthrough involves how HIV evolves within a patient. Most scientists subscribe to the belief that AIDS develops as the HIV virus begins to evolve and starts spreading at the cellular level in a more efficient manner; however the UC Irvine suggests the opposite is true. Their research indicates that once the virus has evolved into a state where it is spreading less efficiently at a cellular level, then AIDS has the chance to truly develop. In addition, a process called co-infection must occur. What this means is that several HIV units must infect singular cells to turn HIV into AIDS. If only one HIV unit infected a singular cell, more than likely, AIDS will not be able to evolve. What this suggests is if researchers are able to stop more than one HIV unit from infecting a singular cell, AIDS could be stopped dead in its tracks. Dominic Wodarz, a UC Irvine biologist working on this study explains, “If this is true, a new approach to therapy could be used to block the process of co-infection in cells. This would prevent deadly HIV strains from emerging and the patient would remain healthy, despite carrying the virus.”

When a person contracts HIV, there are three phases that occur. The first phase takes place in the initial weeks of infection. At this point, the level of the virus within the infected person’s system spikes and symptoms very much like the flu begin to appear. The second phase is called the asymptomatic phase. During this second phase which lasts anywhere from eight to ten years, the level of the virus in the system begins to diminish. In the third and final phase, the transition to AIDS begins and the infected person’s immune system begins to disintegrate. With no immune system, a person is susceptible to many types of infections and death usually occurs.

Research studies to this point had not definitively determined at what point the asymptomatic state progresses into the final phase of AIDS. As mentioned earlier, many scientists believed that as in evolution, the virus grew stronger and was better able to grow, thereby causing HIV to transition. The model developed by Wodarz, however, counteracts this belief. His model which demonstrates the virus spreading and the speed at which it destroys cells suggests that when HIV turns deadly, the strains that kills are not the ones that are the fastest spreading, but rather the slower spreading ones. Wodarz proposes that with further positive testing of this theory, AIDS researchers may be able to devise a drug that prohibits more than one HIV unit from infecting a cell. Thus, the transition to AIDS would not occur.