To know more about Risk for HIV we need to know what it is and how it is transmitted. HIV is a disease which lowers the antibodies count in our immune system until they not able to defend an organism from a basic infection, or bacteria attack, that’s when HIV develops into AIDS.

There a basically three ways how HIV gets transmitted, through a sexual intercourse with a infected person, through blood transfusion-organ transplant(although risk is minimal because organs and blood gets tested) or a products associated with blood for example needles, syringes, and from mother to a child through breastfeeding.

Everybody can get infected with HIV regardless of age, race, sex, or sexual orientation, but you increase your risks if you have an unprotected sex without new latex or polyurethane condoms, if you have an anal sex, which is more risky than vaginal, and sex with a multiple partners that can also increase your chances drastically.

You also increase your Risk for HIV if you have another sexually transmitted disease, because many of them develop little sores which open a path for a HIV virus, and also studies have shown that if you are not circumcised you have more risk for HIV infection.

Drug consumption is directly connected with HIV infections, heavy drug users use needles, syringe, spoons and a filters when preparing the drug, problem is when they share all those things. Infected blood can stay in syringe and then injected together with drug into the next user, that’s the easiest way to get infected because the virus gets directly into the bloodstream. Even if small amount of blood stays on any of those shared things the risk for HIV is greatly increased. Recent studies showed that virus can survive in syringe up to 4 weeks. Drug user can lower his risk if he uses his syringe only on himself, and that is risky also because there are some bacteria that develop inside and can also be injected causing health problems. Because of that some countries have developed so called “needle exchange” to help lover HIV infection between drug users. Even the alcohol is directly connected to the HIV transmission because intoxicated people are prone to more risky behavior, meaning that they are more prone to have unprotected sex.

Risk for HIVRisk for HIV transmission from a mother to a child is fairly high. Mother’s milk contains a high number of nutrients necessary for a child growth, some of those are polyunsaturated fatty acids which play a key role in child immune system development. In women antiretroviral therapy helps lower the risks of passing the virus to the baby when breastfeeding but it is not yet available as much as it is needed.

There was one study which compared 59 women infected with HIV that passed the virus to their baby, and 59 women that were also infected but didn’t pass the virus to their baby, and they concluded that women that had lover count of Cd4 cells were more likely to pass the virus to their child, but it also concluded that women that had high level of omega 6 polyunsaturated fatty acids had significantly lower risk of passing the virus to their baby.

There are a few ways people can lower their risk of the HIV infection, first one is to never have an unprotected sex, always use a condom in any sexual contact. Rest goes to drug user community, always use your own syringe, needle, filter and spoon, because if any of those things gets into the contact with infected persons blood there is a high risk of HIV infection, never throw your used kit out on the public places, because other person or a child can get stung on a needle and get infected, and the last thing you should never do is to never urge anybody to have an unprotected sex with you because you could be infected too.

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