What are the symptoms of HIV?

What are the symptoms of HIV?

Charles Farthing (Chief of Medicine, AIDS Healthcare Foundation) gives expert video advice on: What are the symptoms of HIV?; Where can I be tested for HIV?; Is there a home test kit for HIV? and more...

The symptoms of HIV are incredibly numerous and varied. When someone first contracts HIV, in the first few weeks, you might fall ill with a fever and a rash and recover spontaneously and just think you had the flu. And then for many years, for most HIV patients there are no symptoms of HIV whatsoever. Then various things may start going wrong. An HIV sufferer may lose weight. You may become weak and tired. You may develop oral thrush. You may develop various skin rashes. Then an HIV sufferer may start falling ill with pneumonia or from unusual organisms, fungal organisms, TB, protozoa organisms, viral illnesses. So it is rather hard to say exactly what HIV disease looks like because it can have so many varied presentations.