The Silent Attacker: What You Should Know About HIV Before It’s Too Late
The Silent Attacker: What You Should Know About HIV Before It’s Too Late
HIV is a virus that doesn’t knock, doesn’t give a warning – it settles into the body and gradually weakens the immune system. It makes no distinctions. Age, gender, origin, or social status do not matter. It spreads – quickly, quietly, and often unnoticed.
How is HIV transmitted?
The virus is passed on through bodily fluids. Most often, this happens through unprotected sexual intercourse – whether heterosexual or homosexual. If a person is infected, the virus can be found in semen, vaginal fluid, rectal fluid, and blood.
Another risk is sharing syringes or needles – even once can be enough. Blood transfusions with infected blood or transmission from mother to child during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding can also have serious consequences.
Symptoms – or the absence of symptoms
The insidious thing about HIV: often it shows no signs for a long time. In the early phase, flu-like symptoms may appear – fever, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes. But these subside, and not rarely do years pass without noticing what’s happening inside the body.
Yet the virus does not rest. In the background, it gradually weakens the immune system until the moment comes when even a simple cold keeps you in bed for days – or infections appear that a healthy person would easily fight off.
Stigmatization doesn’t protect
The misconception still persists that HIV is “only a disease of homosexuals” or “only affects drug users.” These assumptions are dangerous. The reality is: the virus does not judge. Anyone who is careless, unprotected, or too trusting exposes themselves to risk. HIV hides in everyday negligence: in the “It was just once,” the “I trust him/her,” the “What could possibly happen?”
Knowledge saves lives
Fear alone doesn’t protect – awareness does. The goal is not to spread panic but to acknowledge reality. HIV exists, and silence only makes it stronger. What matters is: getting informed, talking about it, taking responsibility, and getting tested in time.
