26-b-1 Hiv and Aids

• Library: A Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (2020 Edition)

26-B-1. HIV and AIDS

HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is the virus that causes AIDS.¹ AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. Over time, the HIV virus weakens your immune system so your body cannot fight off infection properly. You may develop various infections-known as "opportunistic" infections-that take advantage of your body's weakened condition.²

About half of people with HIV develop AIDS within ten years of getting HIV. How long it takes for HIV to develop into AIDS is different for each person. Medical treatments can slow down how fast HIV weakens your body.³ As HIV gets worse and becomes AIDS, people become sick with serious illnesses and infections.

Being HIV-positive does not mean that you have AIDS. It is very important that you consult a doctor to find out if you are infected with HIV or if you have developed AIDS so that you can receive the proper medical treatment. The only way you can know for certain whether you are infected is to be tested.

An estimated 1.2 million people in the United States were living with HIV as of 2013, and, in 2015 alone, 18,303 people in the United States were diagnosed with AIDS.⁴ The estimated rate of confirmed AIDS cases in state and federal prisons between 1999 and 2008 was more than two times higher than in the general population.⁵ In 2014, approximately 710 prisoners in New York State prisons were HIV positive and 1,284 prisoners had AIDS-excluding prisoners in New York City.⁶

HIV is most commonly spread by having unprotected anal, vaginal, or oral sex with a person with HIV; by sharing needles or injection equipment with a drug user who has HIV; from an HIV-infected mother to her baby, before or during birth or through...