• Question: HIV&AIDS can be accompanied by different diseases, now what if i treat all the other diseases, will the HIV&AIDS get cured?

    Asked by abjb256 to Alex, Rita, Rose, Steven, Susan on 20 Jan 2017.
    • Photo: Rose Kigathi

      Rose Kigathi answered on 20 Jan 2017:


      No. HIV attacks the immune system thus the name (Human Immunodeficiency Virus). What that means is that it attacks the defence system (army of your body) and destroys it slowly. This allows for other diseases to come in. If you kill the other diseases, HIV is still there still killing the army, and those “cured” diseases keep coming back. At this level the condition is called AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) because the immune system is completely destroyed and even common cold can kill the person.

      However, if HIV is detected early enough people are put on a mixture of medications that help prevent the cells of HIV from multiplying excessively. The HIV cells do not die, but atleast they slow down the multiplication and the level of destruction of blood army (immune system) decreases to low enough levels that one can stay alive, because the immune system can fight the other diseases.

      Therefore a person with HIV MUST always take their medication throughout their life to keep the HIV cells down, otherwise, the virus will rise up again.

    • Photo: Steven Adala

      Steven Adala answered on 20 Jan 2017:


      @abjb256, it is not possible to have HIV/AIDs and effectively manage to treat all other diseases that come as a result of it for the simple reason that the virus weakens your immune system (which is meant to fight disease) and even if you treat one disease, another shall still come up and again and again due to the weakened immune system. Some diseases that come as a result of weakened immunity is cancer and this further complicates treatment since cancer has no known cure. So once you cure a certain illness and you look and feel ok, it takes a short while for another disease or diseases to come back and attack the body. This is the reason why people who take ARVs are advised by the doctor that as soon as they get sick they must visit the doctor without delay because they will always be prone to getting sick. The doctors always do their best to manage the diseases where one has AIDs.

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