Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be going through HIV.

And if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic,

you can follow along at zero tofinals.com in the infectious diseases section

or in the infectious diseases section of the zero

de finals medicine book. So let's get straight into it. Let's start with some basic definitions,

because it's very important to understand the basics before we go into more detail.

HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. So it's a specific type of virus.

AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

And this is a syndrome of immunodeficiency that's caused by the HIV virus.

AIDS is usually referred to in the UK as late stage HIV, and we don't tend to use the AIDS label anymore.

The only time you'll really come across it is when we talk about AIDS-defining illnesses.

So some basics. HIV is an RNA virus, so it's made up of RNA material.

HIV-1 is the most common type,

and HIV 2 usually occurs in West Africa,

and it's quite rare outside this region.

The virus enters and destroys the CD4T helper cells,

and these are a vital part of the immune system. But as it destroys the CD4T helper cells, and these are a vital part of the immune system.

But as it destroys the CD4T helper cells, it really interrupts a lot of the immune processes

that help to kill off bugs, but it causes immunodeficiency.

Initially, there's something called a seroconversion illness, which is a flu-like illness

that usually occurs within a few weeks of infection.

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