| AIDS-Defining Illnesses
Created before we even knew there was a virus that caused it, the
acronym "AIDS" doesn't mean much anymore. It is more accurate than
Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome (GRID), or gay cancer, which
were among the medical community's first names for AIDS. But if
you're looking to describe the medical realities of living with
HIV, including the long periods when things happening inside your
body are not manifested on the outside, the term "HIV disease" is
much more meaningful. For government benefits, however, or for access
to the system of support structures previously available only when
people found out they were sick by landing in the emergency room
with an AIDS-related infection, the acronym "AIDS" remains highly
important. Getting an AIDS diagnosis may mean you can get Social
Security Disability Insurance and other
benefits. If you have AIDS and virtually no money, you can get
SSI,
which are federal subsidies for the retired and disabled. Having
AIDS sometimes means you can get into certain meals programs or
local support groups that don't admit people with HIV disease, no
matter how sick. Even if you get better, once you've had AIDS, you
can often continue getting benefits.
If you are HIV positive and have a CD4 cell count (also known as
a "T4" or "T-cell" count; see ) below 200, that means you have AIDS.
Even if you don't have fewer than 200 CD4 cells, testing positive
for HIV and having any one of 25 different conditions (some of which
are listed below) means you meet the government's definition of
AIDS. For detailed information on many of these opportunistic infections,
see our Treatment Fact Sheets.
Among the conditions the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) considers "AIDS defining":
- Candidiasis
of bronchi, trachea, or lungs
- Cervical cancer,
invasive
- Coccidioidomycosis, disseminated or extrapulmonary
- Cryptococcosis, extrapulmonary
- Cryptosporidiosis, chronic intestinal (longer than one month's
duration)
- Cytomegalovirus
disease (other than liver, spleen, or nodes)
- Cytomegalovirus
retinitis (with loss of vision)
- Encephalopathy, HIV-related
- Herpes simplex:
chronic ulcer(s) (longer than one month's duration); or bronchitis,
pneumonitis, or esophagitis
- Histoplasmosis, disseminated or extrapulmonary
- Isosporiasis, chronic intestinal (longer than one month's duration)
- Kaposi's sarcoma
- Lymphoma,
Burkitt's (or equivalent term)
- Lymphoma,
immunoblastic (or equivalent term)
- Lymphoma,
primary, of brain
- Mycobacterium avium
complex or M. kansasii, disseminated or extrapulmonary
- Mycobacterium tuberculosis, any site (pulmonary or extrapulmonary)
- Mycobacterium, other species or unidentified species, disseminated
or extrapulmonary
- Pneumocystis carinii
pneumonia
- Pneumonia, bacterial and recurrent
- Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML)
- Salmonella septicemia, recurrent
- Toxoplasmosis
of brain
- Wasting syndrome due to HIV
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