The spread of HIV/AIDS has affected millions of people worldwide; AIDS is considered a pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in 2016 there were 36.7 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, with 1.8 million new HIV infections per year and 1 million deaths due to AIDS. Misconceptions about HIV and AIDS arise from several different sources, from simple ignorance and misunderstandings about scientific knowledge regarding HIV infections and the cause of AIDS to misinformation propagated by individuals and groups with ideological stances that deny a causative relationship between HIV infection and the development of AIDS. Below is a list and explanations of some common misconceptions and their rebuttals. Each entry on this list is worded as a correction; the misconceptions themselves are implied rather than stated.

The relationship between HIV and AIDS

HIV is not the same as AIDS HIV is an acronym for human immunodeficiency virus, which is the virus that causes AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). Contracting HIV can lead to the development of AIDS or stage 3 HIV, which causes serious damage to the immune system. While this virus is the underlying cause of AIDS, not all HIV-positive individuals have AIDS, as HIV can remain in a latent state for many years. If undiagnosed or left untreated, HIV usually progresses to AIDS, defined as possessing a CD4+ lymphocyte count under 200 cells/μL or HIV infection plus co-infection with an AIDS-defining opportunistic infection. HIV cannot be cured, but it can be treated, and its transmission can be halted. Treating HIV can prevent new infections, which is the key to ultimately defeating AIDS.

Treatment

HIV cannot be fully cured

Highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) in many cases allows the stabilization of the patient's symptoms, partial recovery of CD4+ T-cell levels, and reduction in viremia (the level of virus in the blood) to low or near-undetectable levels. Disease-specific drugs can also alleviate symptoms of AIDS and even cure specific AIDS-defining conditions in some cases. Medical treatment can reduce HIV infection in many cases to a survivable chronic condition. However, these advances do not constitute a cure, since current treatment regimens cannot eradicate latent HIV from the body.

High levels of HIV-1 (often HAART-resistant) develop if treatment is stopped, if compliance with treatment is inconsistent, or if the virus spontaneously develops resistance to an individual's regimen. Antiretroviral treatment known as post-exposure prophylaxis reduces the chance of acquiring an HIV infection when administered within 72 hours of exposure to HIV. However, an overwhelming body of clinical evidence has demonstrated the U=U rule - if someone's viral load is undetectable (<200 viral copies per mL) they are untransmissible. Essentially this means if a person living with HIV is well controlled on medications with a viral load less than 200, they cannot transmit HIV to their partners via sexual contact. The landmark study that first established this was the HPTN052 study, which looked at over 2000 couples over 10 years, where one partner was HIV positive, and the other partner was HIV negative.

Sexual intercourse with a virgin will not cure AIDS

The myth that sex with a virgin will cure AIDS is prevalent in South Africa. Sex with an uninfected virgin does not cure an HIV-infected person, and such contact will expose the uninfected individual to HIV, potentially further spreading the disease. This myth has gained considerable notoriety as the perceived reason for certain sexual abuse and child molestation occurrences, including the rape of infants, in South Africa.

Sexual intercourse with an animal will not avoid or cure AIDS In 2002, the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) in Johannesburg, South Africa, recorded beliefs amongst youths that sex with animals is a means to avoid AIDS or cure it if infected."Bestiality new Aids myth – SPCA" , March 25, 2002; retrieved February 22, 2007 As with "virgin cure" beliefs, there is no scientific evidence suggesting a sexual act can actually cure AIDS, and no plausible mechanism by which it could do so has ever been proposed. While the risk of contracting HIV via sex with animals is likely much lower than with humans due to HIV's inability to infect animals, the practice of bestiality still has the ability to infect humans with other fatal zoonotic diseases.

HIV antibody testing is reliable Diagnosis of infection using antibody testing is a well-established technique in medicine. HIV antibody tests exceed the performance of most other infectious disease tests in both sensitivity (the ability of the screening test to give a positive finding when the person tested truly has the disease) and specificity (the ability of the test to give a negative finding when the subjects tested are free of the disease under study). Many current HIV antibody tests have sensitivity and specificity in excess of 96% and are therefore extremely reliable."HIV Assays: Operational Characteristics", World Health Organization, 2004 While most patients with HIV show an antibody response after six weeks, window periods vary and may occasionally be as long as three months.

Progress in testing methodology has enabled detection of viral genetic material, antigens, and the virus itself in bodily fluids and cells. While not widely used for routine testing due to high cost and requirements in laboratory equipment, these direct testing techniques have confirmed the validity of the antibody tests.

Positive HIV antibody tests are usually followed up by retests and tests for antigens, viral genetic material and the virus itself, providing confirmation of actual infection.

HIV infection

HIV cannot be spread through casual contact with an HIV infected individual

One cannot become infected with HIV through normal contact in social settings, schools, or in the workplace. Other examples of casual contact in which HIV infection will not occur include shaking someone's hand, hugging or "dry" kissing someone, using the same toilet or drinking from the same glass as an HIV-infected person, and being exposed to coughing or sneezing by an infected person. Saliva carries a negligible viral load, so even open-mouthed kissing is considered a low risk. However, if the infected partner or both of the performers have blood in their mouth due to cuts, open sores, or gum disease, the risk increases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has only recorded one case of possible HIV transmission through kissing (involving an HIV-infected man with significant gum disease and a sexual partner also with significant gum disease),"Kissing and HIV" and the Terence Higgins Trust says that this is essentially a no-risk situation.

Other interactions that could theoretically result in person-to-person transmission include caring for nose bleeds and home health care procedures, yet there are very few recorded incidents of transmission occurring in these ways. A handful of cases of transmission via biting have occurred, though this is extremely rare.

HIV-positive individuals cannot be detected by their appearance Due to media images of the effects of AIDS, many people believe that individuals infected with HIV always appear a certain way, or at least appear different from an uninfected, healthy person. In fact, disease progression can occur over a long period of time before the onset of symptoms, and as such, HIV infections cannot be detected based on appearance.

HIV can be transmitted through oral sex Contracting HIV through oral sex is possible, but it is much less likely than from anal sex and penile–vaginal intercourse. No cases of such a transmission were observed in a sample of 8965 people performing receptive oral sex.

HIV is not transmitted by mosquitoes When mosquitoes bite a person, they do not inject the blood of a previous victim into the person they bite next. Mosquitoes do, however, inject their saliva into their victims, which may carry diseases such as dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, or West Nile virus and can infect a bitten person with these diseases. HIV is not transmitted in this manner. On the other hand, a mosquito may have HIV-infected blood in its gut, and if swatted on the skin of a human who then scratches it, transmission is hypothetically possible, though this risk is extremely small, and no cases have yet been identified through this route.

HIV can survive for extended periods outside the body HIV can survive at room temperature outside the body for hours if dry (provided that initial concentrations are high), and for weeks if wet (in used syringes/needles). However, the amounts typically present in bodily fluids do not survive nearly as long outside the body—generally no more than a few minutes if dry.

HIV does not only infect homosexual men and drug users

HIV can transmit from one person to another if an engaging partner is HIV positive. In the United States, the main route of infection is via homosexual anal sex, while for women transmission is primarily through heterosexual contact. It is true that anal sex (regardless of the sex of the receptive partner) carries a higher risk of infection than most sex acts, but most penetrative sex acts between any individuals carry some risk. Properly used condoms can reduce this risk.

An HIV-infected person can have children HIV-infected women remain fertile, although in late stages of HIV disease a pregnant woman may have a higher risk of miscarriage. Normally, the risk of transmitting HIV to the unborn child is between 15 and 30%. However, this may be reduced to just 2–3% if patients carefully follow medical guidelines.WHO, 2005

The antibody response caused by the body does not always eliminate HIV infections There are numerous examples of viruses other than HIV that can be pathogenic after evidence of immunity appears. Measles virus may persist for years in brain cells, eventually causing a chronic neurologic disease despite the presence of antibodies. Viruses such as Cytomegalovirus, Herpes simplex virus, and Varicella zoster may be activated after years of latency even in the presence of abundant antibodies. In other animals, viral relatives of HIV with long and variable latency periods, such as visna virus in sheep, cause central nervous system damage even after the production of antibodies."Disease Progression Despite Antibodies", "The Relationship Between the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome", National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, September, 1995

HIV has a well-recognized capacity to mutate to evade the ongoing immune response of the host.

A large number of CD4+ T-cells are infected by HIV over the course of the infection Although the fraction of CD4+ T-cells that is infected with HIV at any given time is never high (only a small subset of activated cells serve as ideal targets of infection), several groups have shown that rapid cycles of death of infected cells and infection of new target cells occur throughout the course of the disease. Macrophages and other cell types are also infected with HIV and serve as reservoirs for the virus.

Furthermore, like other viruses, HIV is able to suppress the immune system by secreting proteins that interfere with it. For example, HIV's coat protein, gp120, sheds from viral particles and binds to the CD4 receptors of otherwise healthy T-cells; this interferes with the normal function of these signalling receptors. Another HIV protein, Tat, has been demonstrated to suppress T cell activity.