Strategies for managing
opportunistic infections
May 2008 View PDF En
español
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infects the cells of your body’s
immune system. It then impairs how they function and eventually
kills them over time. This gradually weakens your immune system,
and your body then loses its ability to fight disease. While HIV
is the cause, most people who die of AIDS do not die of HIV per
se. They die from the infections that the body can no longer control
due to a weakened immune system. Fairly common infections, which
may cause little or no harm in a healthy person, take the opportunity
of a weakened immune system to cause serious and even life-threatening
disease. This is why they’re called opportunistic
infections,
or OIs.
Dealing with OIs is an important part of a long-term plan for managing
your HIV disease. The text over the next four pages explains in
detail the different parts of an OI strategy, which includes:
- understanding what OIs are,
- learning how to prevent them,
- using preventive treatment when needed,
- treating them as they occur, and
- using maintenance therapy when needed.