Glossary

Hypertension is the medical name for high blood pressure (BP). Blood pressure is measured as two numbers ie 120/80. The first number is systolic BP – the pressure when your heart beats. The second number is diastolic BP, which is the pressure when you heart rests between beats.

Target range for BP is usually 120/80. Drugs to reduce BP are sometimes recommended if this is above 130/85 or 140/90. This also depends on other risk factors for heart disease, including age, sex, ethnicity ajd other health factors.

Hypertension increases the risk of a heart attack or stroke, particularly when diastolic BP is high.

See: Hypotension (low blood pressure).

wasting – loss of lean body mass (muscle loss). A unplanned or unexplained wight loss of more than 5% body weight over six months can be an AIDS-defining illness.

Weight loss and wasting section of the training manual.

virion – the name for a virus when it is not inside a cell, for example when new viral material leaves a CD4 cell and is floating in blood or plasma

in vitro – a study in a test tube. Literally, ‘in glass’.

TB (tuberculosis) – a bacterial infection that commonly affects the lungs (pulmonary TB) but which can also affect most other organs.

TB section of the training manual.