World AIDS Day: Elton John’s husband says ‘treatment is prevention’

In This Story: Elton John

Elton John is a singer and composer from England, UK, who has had a host of hits over a lengthy career, including greats like Rocket Man and Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me.

Famous for singing at his piano, Elton John has amassed a huge global fan-base.

As well as creating pop hits, the singer has been instrumental in writing lyrics and music for several musicals, for stage and screen, including the Lion King.

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In This Story: HIV

The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of Lentivirus (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive.

Without treatment, average survival time after infection with HIV is estimated to be 9 to 11 years, depending on the HIV subtype. In most cases, HIV is a sexually transmitted infection and occurs by contact with or transfer of blood, pre-ejaculate, semen, and vaginal fluids. Research has shown (for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples) that HIV is untransmittable through condomless sexual intercourse if the HIV-positive partner has a consistently undetectable viral load.

Non-sexual transmission can occur from an infected mother to her infant during pregnancy, during childbirth by exposure to her blood or vaginal fluid, and through breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells.

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5 Recent Items: HIV