- Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV is the virus which causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). HIV attacks a person’s immune system by destroying CD4 lymphocytes (or "T cells,” a type of white blood cell) which are crucial to the human immune systems ability to fight off certain types of infections and cancers.

- An infected person is considered to have AIDS when the virus has weakened the immune system to the point where persons CD4 count (which in a healthy person is usually between 600 and 1,200) drops below 200 severely weakening the persons immune system or when the persons immune system becomes so weak that they become sick with one of several opportunistic infections or cancers such as wasting syndrome (involuntary weight loss), tuberculosis or PCP (a type of pneumonia).

- HIV is transmitted when an infected person’s body fluids (blood, breast milk, semen, vaginal fluid) enters another persons bloodstream.

- The most common ways to contract HIV are sharing injection equipment and having unprotected sex with an infected person.

- Those infected with HIV may present no symptoms for 10 or more years. They may be unaware of their infection status and therefore unknowingly risk exposing others to the virus. The only way to find out if you have HIV is by taking an HIV test.

- 25% of those infected in the U.S. are unaware of their infection status and account for more than 50% of all new infections.

- Each year there are 16,000 new HIV infections among people who inject drugs

- AIDS was the fifth leading cause of death for U.S residents ages 25-44 in 2000. Of those cases, over 40% had become infected through sharing injection equipment.

- Approximately one quarter of those infected with HIV in the US are also co- infected with Hepatitis C virus (HCV).

- Among HIV infected injection drug users co-infection with HIV and HCV is quite common with an estimated 50%-90% co-infected.

- Although there are now medications which have helped those infected live longer healthier lives, there is still no cure.

HIV/ AIDS and Los Angeles

- According to AIDS Project Los Angeles, there are more than 60,000 people living with HIV or AIDS in Los Angeles county with 1,500 to 2,000 people becoming newly infected each year. This is more infections than at any other time in history.

- Los Angeles County has the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases of any county in the state. Los Angeles city has the second highest number of HIV-positive people living in any city nationwide.

- More than 30,000 Angelenos have lost their lives to HIV/ AIDS.

- Los Angeles’s HIV-positive population is currently growing by an additional four people each day.

HIV/AIDS and California

- California has the fifteenth highest injection-related AIDS rate in the nation.

- About 25 percent of California's AIDS cases are injection-related.

- More than 86,000 Californians have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS.

- 19% of all AIDS cases in California are linked to sharing contaminated injection equipment.

- Data indicates that more than 1,500 of new infections in California annually are directly attributed to sharing injection equipment.

HIV is transmitted through:

- Unprotected vaginal, anal, or oral sex.

- Sharing injection equipment to inject drugs, vitamins, hormones, steroids, or medicines. Also, using dirty needles to tattoo or pierce body parts.

- HIV positive mothers passing the virus to their child before or during birth or through exposure to infected breast milk.

- Receiving a blood transfusion or blood clotting factor prior to 1985

- People who are exposed to blood and/or body fluids at work, like health care workers, may be exposed to HIV through needle-sticks or other on-the-job exposures.

HIV is not transmitted through:

- Casual contact such as hugging, shaking hands or a casual kiss.

- Sharing drinking glasses, dishes, a drinking fountain or food with an infected person.

- Sneezing, coughing.

Information taken from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, The Dogwood Center, AIDS Project LA and The California Department of Public Health