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HIV Symptom Information

Symptoms are present in three of the four stages of HIV. The symptoms of first-stage HIV are caused by the immune system as it launches its first defense against the virus, while later symptoms are caused by the effects of HIV, which progressively weakens the immune system over time.

  1. Acute HIV Infection

    • Between two and four weeks after infection, many people develop a brief flu-like illness, with symptoms including fever, headache and sore throat, swollen glands and a skin rash, according to the Mayo Clinic. Because of the similarity of these symptoms to other viral symptoms, this group of symptoms alone cannot be used to diagnose HIV. Some people do not have symptoms during acute HIV infection.

    Asymptomatic HIV

    • Asymptomatic HIV follows acute HIV infection directly. There are no symptoms during this stage, which lasts on average for 10 years; however, as with other stages of HIV, it is not possible to know how long this stage will last for a given person.

    Symptomatic HIV

    • Symptomatic HIV follows symptomatic HIV and leads to a flu-like illness, with chronic conditions like swollen glands, diarrhea and weight loss, fever and troubled breathing with a cough, according to the Mayo Clinic.

    AIDS

    • AIDS is the fourth and last stage of HIV. It is a syndrome marked by four groups of conditions: opportunistic infections (bacterial, viral and other infections that do not generally cause disease in healthy people), severe weight loss, cancers (cervical cancers, cancers of immune cells, and a skin cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma) and neurological problems like AIDS dementia, according to Merck.

    Testing

    • The long absence of symptoms, however, along with the non-specific nature of early HIV symptoms mean that the only way to know a person's HIV status is through testing. To find HIV testing centers, see the "Resources" section.

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