Question
How long can someone survive without HIV treatment?
7 August 2021. Related: All topics, Life expectancy.
Hi, how long can a person servive with HIV virus in the blood without taking drugs?
Answer
Hi there
HIV treatment – called ART – is recommended to everyone who is HIV positive.
This is because without ART, your immune system steadily gets damaged. Eventually it becomes too weak to fight serious infections. These can be fatal.
How quickly this happens is individual.
Some people are hospitalised when they are first infected. Others can progress to this serious stage within a year.
Some people might go for 10 years or longer before the they become ill. But HIV will still be causing immune damage without treatment.
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