I would like to speak about the situation of Aids in France.

Claire Abraham

I would like to speak about the situation of Aids in France. Aids is an acquired immune deficiency syndrome. It’s a disease, which destroys the cells responsible for defending the human body. The disease provokes other viruses and certain cancers.

When somebody is contaminated by the virus HIV very often there are some symptoms that appear between eight days to three or four weeks after having been infected.

In the majority of cases, a high temperature of about 38Oc alongside accompanies contaminations with a feeling of being unwell. This is what one calls a syndrome resembling flu.

Sometimes one may have a rash, with red marks on the body, like those of an allergic reaction, a headache, stomachache, diarrhoea, and less frequently neurological problems, as in a paralysed face. Many times, oblivious to that person they think that they have just caught a tough infection.

Fortunately, all these signs don’t necessarily mean that a person has been contaminated; it could be due to another likely less serious illness. None the less, it is very important to go consult the doctor immediately to be reassured that these clinical symptoms aren’t a primal infection of HIV.

Only a blood test can say if this is the case or not.

Concerning blood testing, there exists in France centres for testing which a free and one remains anonymous. One can obtain the addresses and timetables directly on 0 800 840 800 77.

Ways of ...

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Only a blood test can say if this is the case or not.

Concerning blood testing, there exists in France centres for testing which a free and one remains anonymous. One can obtain the addresses and timetables directly on 0 800 840 800 77.

Ways of contamination

The virus is transmitted through sex and blood. Unfortunately, the well known world wide pandemic of Aids has lead to at least thirty four millions cases globally and between twenty one thousand to twenty four thousand of these cases are in France. Most of these people are immigrants, living in the poorer districts of France and come from Africa and South East Asia.

Aids is very also transmitted through prostitution, infected blood transfusions and children born by infected mothers.

Through these ways, there are about five thousand new cases of Aids or HIV in France.

Who is contagious?

There are three groups of contagious people:

patients with confirmed Aids
people who carry the virus but have no symptoms what so ever
somebody who isn’t infected but has a romantic adventure with an infected person or has just one injection with a contaminated needed

Prevention

The bottom line of prevention is to avoid all contact with contaminated blood and non-protected sexual relations with a carrier of the disease. It is evident that each person must assume his or her own protection, using a reliable barrier for each encounter, except for couples of a Fidel relation where any suspicion has been ruled out.

A condom, effectively avoids all contaminations of the virus responsible for Aids.

The condom is a barrier that doesn’t let the virus pass. It avoids all direct contact and exchange of body fluids. It is the only way for total prevention of transmitting Aids.

Concerning blood, there are numerous transfusion centres in France that eliminate any way of infected blood being used. Effectively, before 1985, blood transfusions represented a major way of spreading Aids. For public health and security it became necessary to realise a system of blood screening.

In the body one can detect with maximum reliability HIV three months after being infected.

For people who are concerned about the safety of receiving blood, risk of transmission is excluded.

Treatments

To treat Aids there exists medicines known as therapies. It is said that these have an action against the virus so they block the ability of the virus to multiply. It prevents the illness completely taking over the whole of the immune system. Often a partial improvement in immunity is noticed. However, these treatments aren’t cures. One may have heard of a “total cure”, but this is unfortunately not in production at the moment.