HIV and opportunistic infections

When a person in infected with HIV the immune system of the person gets weakened. A HIV infected person is vulnerable to malignancies and infections that are known as opportunistic infections. A HIV infected person can get many infections and disease easily. A HIV infected person can get bacterial infection like MAC, tuberculosis, septicaemia, and bacterial pneumonia. Protozoal infections are also very common in HIV infected people. They can get diseases like cryptosporidiosis, leishmaniasis, isosporiasis, microsporidiosis and toxoplasmosis. The person can be also infected with many fungal diseases such as penicilliosis, cryptococcosis, candidiasis and PCP. Viruses such as herpes simplex, herpes zoster virus and cytomegalovirus can cause many viral diseases in a HIV infected person. HIV can be associated with malignancies such as lymphoma, squamous cell carcinoma and Kaposi’s sarcoma. There are different conditions that can occur in different stages of the infection. Early HIV infected people are likely to develop malaria, tuberculosis, herpes zoster, septicaemia, staphylococcal skin infections and bacterial pneumonia frequently. These diseases can occur in normal people who are not infected to HIV. However, the decreased immune system increases the chances of getting these diseases more frequent in HIV infected people. They also take longer time to recover.