YouthAIDS.com started a campaign to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, to better inform the world population, and to provide care for the ones in need. In case you are not aware of what AIDS and HIV mean here is some information.

AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, which represents an advanced HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infection. The HIV virus is an retrovirus and what it does is to convert its RNA to DNA with the help of a special viral enzyme called Reverse Transcriptase. Once this step is over the virus takes over the genetic material of a cell, infecting it with HIV. From now on the process repeats and more cells get infected. However this is not the end, because HIV destroys the body’s immune system by killing the helper T cells.

Statistics show that more than 14,000 people contract HIV every day, 40.3 million people now live with HIV and last but not least AIDS kills one child every minute. Here you will find a lot more statistics grouped on different regions of the world.

There are several ways you can get infected with HIV and these are sexual contact, exposure to infected body fluids or tissues, and from mother to fetus or child during perinatal period.

Teenagers are mostly exposed to this dangerous virus through sexual contact and this picture says it all.

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