Know Your Status - Get Tested for HIV

HIV 101

AIDS is a chronic, life-threatening condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). By damaging or destroying the cells of your immune system, HIV interferes with your body’s ability to effectively fight off viruses, bacteria, and fungi that cause disease. This makes you more susceptible to certain types of cancers and to opportunistic infections your body would normally resist, such as pneumonia and meningitis. The virus and the infection itself are known as HIV. The term acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is used to mean the later stages of an HIV infection.

You may have read or heard things that are not true about how you get HIV/AIDS. Here are the FACTS:

  • You cannot get HIV through casual contact such as shaking hands or hugging a person with HIV/AIDS.
  • You cannot get HIV from using a public telephone, drinking fountain, restroom, swimming pool, Jacuzzi, or hot tub.
  • You cannot get HIV from sharing a drink.
  • You cannot get HIV from being coughed or sneezed on by a person with HIV/AIDS.
  • You cannot get HIV from giving blood.
  • You cannot get HIV from a mosquito bite or any other kind of animal bite.

How is HIV Transmitted?

HIV is spread through some of the body’s fluids:

  • blood
  • semen
  • vaginal fluids
  • breast milk
  • some body fluids sometimes handled by health care workers (fluids surrounding the brain and spinal cord, bone joints, and around an unborn baby)

HIV is transmitted from one person to another by:

  • having unprotected sex (vaginal, anal, or oral) with a person who has HIV sharing needles with someone who has HIV
  • during pregnancy, birth, or breast-feeding if a mother has HIV
  • getting transfusions of blood with HIV, which is rare in the United States

Prevention and Education

Taking simple steps to prevent getting or spreading HIV will pay off both for yourself and for those you love.
Know your “ABCs.”
A stands for “abstinence.”
B is for “be faithful.”
C is for “condoms.”

The following are known risk factors for HIV infection. If you answer yes to any of these questions, you should definitely seek counseling and testing. You may be at increased risk of infection if any of the following apply to you since 1978.

  • Have you injected drugs or steroids or shared equipment (such as needles, syringes, cotton, water) with others?
  • Have you had unprotected vaginal, anal, or oral sex
  • Have you exchanged sex for drugs or money?
  • Have you been diagnosed with or treated for hepatitis, tuberculosis (TB), or a sexually transmitted disease (STD), like syphilis?
  • Have you received a blood transfusion or clotting factor between 1978 and 1985?
  • Have you had unprotected sex with someone who could answer yes to any of the above questions?

If you have had sex with someone whose history of risk-taking behavior is unknown to you or if you or they may have had many sex partners, then you have increased the chances that you might be HIV infected.

If you plan to become pregnant, counseling and testing is even more important. If a woman is infected with HIV, medical therapies are available to lower the chance of passing HIV to the infant before, during, or after birth.

For more information on HIV/AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases, please visit these websites: