HIV Transmission

 

Although HIV is a widespread disease, it is particularly hard to transmit or contract and requires specific conditions for transmission. The reason for this is because it is a disease mostly spread through sexual contact (which is common in everyday life) and many people do not have the knowledge of how prevent it. HIV lives and reproduces in the carrier’s body fluids, and can only be transferred to another person through these fluids, which are:

 

· Blood

· Semen

· Pre-seminal fluid (pre-ejaculate)

· Breast milk

· Amniotic fluid

· Vaginal fluids

· Rectal (anal) mucous

 

Other body fluids such as sweat, tears, saliva and urine cannot transmit this virus to others because they don’t have enough of the HIV virus to infect people. However these fluids still contain small traces of the virus.

 

HIV is mostly transmitted through unsafe sex practices. This is because the fluids most often transferred through sexual intercourse are the fluids in the body most infected with HIV.

 

In the early 80s, HIV wasn’t thought to be too infectious to those who participated in heterosexual sex, but extremely infectious to specifically homosexual males. However, HIV today is most commonly transmitted through heterosexual sexual contact.