to AIDS. It is this development of AIDS that kills a patient. People can be infected with HIV, yet they may not show symptoms for months or even years. This means that it could take up to six months or more before a positive result shows up on a test. HIV positive people are able to transmit the virus to other people, even if the test results are negative.
             Moreover, HIV is a highly specialized virus that attacks the body with a vengeance. In a normal person, a group of specialized cells travels through the bloodstream, destroying and attacking foreign viruses or bacteria. This group of specialized cells is depleted in AIDS patients. A CD4+ T cell, or a white blood cell, is needed to help the specialized cells to eliminate the foreign viruses or bacteria. The HIV virus finds, infects, and then kills CD4+ T cells, until they are all gone. The body cannot defend itself against foreign bacteria or viruses, without these CD4+ T cells. Infections that a healthy person could fight off eventually kill AIDS patients. It generally takes eight to ten years for symptoms of AIDS to surface in a patient.
             Next, the HIV infection cycle is a four-step process; the first stage of the cycle is attachment. After HIV has entered the bloodstream, the virus particle travels throughout the body, but it only infects CD4+ T cells. The second stage is entry into macrophages. HIV attaches itself to a CD4 receptor of a macrophage, but HIV needs a second macrophage receptor, called CCR5, to get across the cell membrane. The third stage is replication. The HIV particle gets rid of its protective coat, once it gets inside the macrophage. This causes virus RNA to float around in the cytoplasm, also with a virus enzyme that was already in the virus shell. Reverse transcriptase, the virus enzyme, then synthesizes a double strand of DNA, which is similar to the virus RNA. The host cell is then directed to make many copies of the virus by the double-stranded DNA. ...