Editor’s Note: The co-author of this article, Tommy, is a doctor at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Shijingshan District of Beijing.
Speaking of the word [AIDS], do you think of what?
It can be prevented and treated but cannot be cured, so the social fear of AIDS still exists more or less.
Perhaps you already know a lot about AIDS, and perhaps you can give the correct answers to some of the questions listed below. However, we still want to talk about these questions in detail. I hope you can know more about AIDS and protect yourself more.
Can Blood Drops on Xinjiang Large Plate Chickens Spread AIDS? Rumors!
This is still a rumor that spread in 2008 about the spread of AIDS by blood drops from large-plate chickens.
Many departments or organizations have already started the rumor, but we still want to explain it to you again:
This is a rumor, this is a rumor, this is a rumor! Important things should be said three times.
The most fundamental reason is that HIV is very fragile outside the body (the body surface also belongs to outside the body) and cannot reproduce, so it cannot infect people.
Eat kebab, large plate chicken, don’t have to worry about AIDS infection. But! There is a situation to pay special attention to: in rare cases, HIV infected people may cause HIV transmission by chewing food and feeding it to children!
In addition, no food-borne HIV cases have been found.
Don’t say this news has long been refuted by the government. Even if it is worried that food with a small amount of blood or semen from HIV infected people, air, cooking calories, gastric acid and various seasonings in food will kill the virus.
HIV does not spread through air, water, insect bites (including mosquitoes or ticks), shaking hands, eating together, kissing cheeks, and sharing toilets. Even if the other party is a clear HIV infected person and is contaminated with saliva and tears, it will not cause infection.
Is homosexuality easy to get AIDS? No!
Of course not.
I don’t know if you have noticed that in the AIDS epidemic report, we never said what is the infection rate of [homosexuals], but what is the infection rate of [men who have sex with men].
Is this different from what?
The difference is big. Homosexuality refers to people’s [sexual orientation], while the high prevalence rate of AIDS is the group of men who have sex with men with [behavior] problems.
You can probably understand it this way:
People who like the same sex and can be aroused [sexual interest] by the same sex are not necessarily [live ammunition], so they are not necessarily high-risk groups for AIDS. On the other hand, some people do not necessarily like the same sex, but for some special reasons (such as going out to work far away from their spouses or not contacting the outside world for a long time in prison or the army), they have had sex with the same sex, then these people are likely to become the [target] of AIDS.
The number of people infected with AIDS through men who have sex with men, In recent years, the rate of increase is the fastest. Because this kind of sexual behavior mostly adopts anal sex, if unprotected anal sex is carried out, mucosal hemorrhage will be more easily caused than vaginal sexual intercourse, and the physiological structure of rectum is also more conducive to virus invasion. If anal sex objects and anal sex behavior are more frequent, the risk is even higher.
Condoms are the best way to protect people who have sex with men.
Can blood donation infect AIDS? No!
In the 1990s, there was the spread of AIDS caused by blood sales in China. At that time, the main problem was the sharing of some medical devices.
Now, blood collection needles, blood bags and other medical devices used for blood donation are disposable. Therefore, there is no risk of infection with AIDS. China began to implement the Blood Donation Law of the People’s Republic of China in October 1998, ensuring blood donors and blood users from the legal level.
However, there is still a certain risk of HIV infection in blood transfusion.
This is because at the beginning of human infection with HIV, there is a [window period], that is, at the time of infection, the existing technical means detect HIV antibody or virus nucleic acid in non-bleeding.
Compared with HIV antibody detection, the sensitivity of virus nucleic acid detection is higher, and the country is also expanding the coverage of nucleic acid detection. However, due to the objective existence of window period, the risk of HIV infection caused by blood transfusion is very low, but it cannot be completely avoided.
In particular, it is mentioned here that why we do not recommend people who have had sex with men to donate blood, in order to avoid losing blood that cannot be detected with HIV to healthy people.
In our work, we found some friends who expect to test themselves for HIV infection through blood donation. We want to condemn this kind of behavior!
Because it is impossible to confirm whether these friends have committed high-risk behaviors in the blood donation center, they rely entirely on voluntary information. Therefore, this is very unfair to people who use blood!
If these people want to know whether they are infected, they can go to the voluntary counseling and testing clinics of CDC and other institutions for testing.
How long can you live with AIDS? Live a long time!
In the future, AIDS may become a chronic and controllable disease like hypertension and diabetes.
Thanks to the development of antiviral drugs, HIV-related mortality and mortality rates have been greatly reduced. HIV-infected and AIDS patients can live for a long time and their quality of life will not be too poor.
Of course, in order to get a good therapeutic effect, it is very important to take medicine strictly according to the doctor’s advice.
Good compliance with medicine can inhibit the number of viruses in the body, reduce the risk of drug resistance, improve the health level, quality of life and survival time, and at the same time greatly reduce the risk of HIV transmission.
On the contrary, not taking medicine according to the doctor’s advice is likely to lead to treatment failure.
Unlike hypertension and diabetes, For diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, drugs are still effective in the treatment of these diseases even if they are not taken at intervals. However, for AIDS, taking drugs without strict compliance with the doctor’s advice will lead to the uncontrollable number of viruses in the body, which may lead to drug resistance (drug loss of therapeutic effect) or serious consequences of treatment failure.
Where can I ask for help if I suspect I have AIDS? 12320!
China’s provincial and municipal disease control centers, hospitals at or above the county level, entry-exit inspection and quarantine agencies, blood stations and blood centers at all levels, and dermatological and venereal disease prevention and control centers all have HIV testing and screening laboratories. All can carry out HIV antibody testing. The above-mentioned institutions provide HIV antibody testing, but also provide AIDS-related counseling, including telephone and outpatient counseling.
The website of the STD/AIDS Prevention and Control Center of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention has the “List of HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing Institutions” of all provinces, municipalities directly under the Central Government and autonomous regions. The list is accompanied by the addresses and contact numbers of each testing institution. Of course, When you have AIDS-related problems and need help, you can also call [12320 Health Hotline] all over the country for consultation.
More understanding, more understanding, more protection. I hope we can live better in a world coexisting with viruses.