When do the symptoms appear? | Symptoms of HIV infection

When do the symptoms appear?

When the first symptoms of an HIV infection appear is very variable. They always appear only when the virus has reproduced strongly enough. It should be noted that only a part of those affected show symptoms in the first few years – in the remaining infected persons the virus remains unnoticed until tumors, general symptoms such as weakness, weight loss and loss of consciousness or so-called “opportunistic” infections – i.e. infections that only occur when the immune system is weakened – appear.

In these people there is no exact time at which the first symptoms appear. A few notice the first symptoms within weeks or months, others remain symptom-free for 15 years. In the first 2 years, symptoms almost never develop.

In each following year, about 6% fall ill with the full-blown HIV infection. On average it takes 8-10 years until then.

• In some patients, acute HIV disease sets in shortly after the virus enters the body – it usually begins between 7 days and 6 weeks after infection, with initial symptoms such as fever, sore throat and swelling of the lymph nodes usually occurring between the second and fourth week.

  In the first two months after infection, general and non-specific symptoms of a severe infection are most common (see below), followed by the so-called latency phase, which can last months or even years (stage A). In this latency phase, the infected person has few symptoms; at most, he or she notices an increasing weakness in performance and weight loss. The progressive destruction of capable immune cells can gradually lead to infections with pathogens that would not break out in a healthy person. These diseases are summarized as AIDS-defining and non-AIDS-defining diseases.

• After the latency phase, the non-AIDS defining symptoms appear first (stage B).
• An occurrence of AIDS-defining diseases, which also entails the diagnosis of AIDS, is to be expected at the earliest two years after infection (stage C).
• A skin rash often becomes visible 1-2 days after the first appearance of fever. Another group of people affected notice thick, swollen lymph nodes in several parts of the body such as the neck, armpits and groin within a few weeks after infection, sometimes months later.