Anonymous and Confidential use the same testing method. The only difference is one does not have your name attached to the results.

Anonymous antibody testing is available at Anonymous Test Sites in most California counties. Anonymous testing means that absolutely no one has access to your test results since your name is never recorded at the test site.

Confidential antibody testing means that you and the health care provider know your results, which may be recorded in your medical file.

Because of the media hype that surrounds it and the devastating effects it has on both individuals and large populations, many people have heard of the term “HIV or AIDS” at some point in their lives. Usually the terms stir up fear in an individual, partly because they know that it is a fatal disease, and partly because there is a misunderstanding as to how you can contract it.

HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. This is the virus that causes AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). Every person has an immune system in their body which fights infection and disease. For someone with HIV, the virus locates certain crucial immune system white blood cells called T-cells or CD-4 cells, and destroys them. Thus, an HIV infected person ultimately ends up with a compromised immune system that is unable to ward off illnesses, bacteria, viruses, and diseases. When the body reaches the point where it cannot fight off these pathogens, the person is considered to have AIDS. It usually takes about 10-15 years from the time of HIV infection until full blown AIDS, although antiretroviral drugs can prolong the process.

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The Global HIV Prevention Working Group, an international panel of 50 leading AIDS experts, said many effective HIV prevention steps are not having anything like the impact they could because they are often not available to those at the greatest risk of infection.

In a “report card” published at an international AIDS conference in Vienna on national efforts to try to prevent new infections with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, the group found most regions could do a lot better.

“On average the grades that were assigned by the working group ranged from average to poor, with some failing grades for some of the key indicators,” Helene Gayle, co-chair of the Working Group and chief executive of CARE USA, told reporters.

“Our overall finding is not that prevention is failing, but that we are failing prevention.”

The AIDS virus infects 33.4 million people around the world and has killed 25 million since the pandemic began in the 1980s. There is no cure and no vaccine but drugs can keep patients healthy. Without treatment, the virus destroys the immune system, leaving patients susceptible to infections and cancer.

Scientists and AIDS experts repeatedly say that the world cannot “treat its way out” of the AIDS epidemic.

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How to Reduce Your HIV and AIDS risk
What is HIV?
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) attacks the body’s immune system. A healthy immune system is what keeps you from getting sick.

Because HIV damages your immune system, you are more likely to get sick from bacteria and viruses. It is also harder for your body to fight off these infections when you do get them, so you may have trouble getting better. HIV is the condition that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
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What is AIDS?
AIDS is a progression of HIV. When HIV moves into its final stages, it is considered to be AIDS. People who have AIDS are at an even higher risk of getting sick, and their bodies are even less able to fight off infections than people who have HIV. They usually die of an infection or cancer.
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How do people get HIV?
HIV can only be passed from person to person through body fluids, such as blood, semen and vaginal fluid. The most common ways HIV is passed are:
•By having unprotected anal, vaginal or oral sex with an infected person.
•By sharing needles and syringes for injecting drugs with an infected person.
You may be at risk of getting HIV if you have any of the risk factors listed in the box below. Children born to infected mothers can also become infected during pregnancy.

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* Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
* This condition progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors.
* The time between infection and the appearance of symptoms tends to be much longer, allowing more opportunities for these microorganisms to be transmitted to other hosts. The period between infection and the appearance of AIDS can take from 7 to 12 years.
* AIDS is now a pandemic. In 2007, an estimated 33.2 million people lived with the disease worldwide, and it killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children.

History:

* Genetic research indicates that HIV originated in west-central Africa during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

* AIDS was first recognized by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981 and its cause, HIV, identified in the early 1980s.

* The symptoms of AIDS are primarily the result of conditions that do not normally develop in individuals with healthy immune systems
* Most of these conditions are infections caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites that are normally controlled by the elements of the immune system that HIV damages.
* A person may remain asymptomatic, feel, and appear healthy for even years even though he or she is infected with HIV. While he or she does not exhibit AIDS, the immune system starts to be impaired.
* The person may exhibit neurological symptoms such as memory loss, altered gait, depression, sleep disorders or chronic diarrhea.
* This set of symptoms is often called AIDS-related Complex (ARC) by clinicians. As the symptom progress, the patient becomes an AIDS patient.

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You probably know some of them. They have made HIV and AIDS the sole source of their income. Some are researchers into an HIV vaccine; others are home based care givers while the majority are teachers on behavior change, telling us what we can do to keep the virus at bay or if we are already infected, how we can live a healthy lifestyle.

There are millions of them out there. They are not living with HIV and AIDS; they are living on HIV and AIDS. They depend on this infection so much that they curse the day a cure will be found. They are leeches that make lots of money on HIV and AIDS, they have every reason to stop any vaccine that could cure or prevent HIV and AIDS!

Should we trust pharmaceutical companies and the researchers they fund to get a cure or a vaccine against HIV and AIDS? I don’t trust them to announce a major breakthrough that will make them jobless the next minute. They must remain at it for as long as they can until a chance intervention by nature itself saves the millions of suffering patients out there.

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Twenty years ago, the word “AIDS” struck terror in Americans. Death could hide in a drop of blood.

Today, the power of word has faded: Saying “AIDS” aloud makes most people uncomfortable, not afraid. Studies find fewer Americans see acquired immune deficiency syndrome as a grave national problem.

Yet the problem still sends more than 18,000 Americans a year to their graves.

Early in the epidemic, when HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — happened in this region, most didn’t hear about it. No longer: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the highest number of Americans living with AIDS, the highest number of deaths among those with AIDS and the most new AIDS diagnoses are in the South.

In AIDS’ early days, it was confined to certain groups. Today, the virus’s reach is much broader. Though there still are some groups whose overall risk is greater, that varies by region: In East Tennessee, the gay white man is still overwhelmingly the face of HIV; in Memphis, blacks are four times more likely to be infected than are whites.

If anything positive could be said about such a destructive virus, it might be that it has united people of different backgrounds, races, religions and sexual orientations. But, as those affected will tell you, there’s still a long fight ahead.

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