i'm trying to figure out why some viruses like flu or smallpox, people get ill fairly quick, but with AIDS it can take several years for symptoms?
why is this?

Life fucking sucks bro

viruses can remain latent within a host. specifically HIV/AIDS waits until its host reaches a state where their immune system is somewhat compromised before it begins to replicate

AIDS is auto immune deficiency syndrome, it just weakens your immune system
then other viruses / bacteria can more easily fk u up

on the other hand the small pox or flu directly fks u up even when your immune system tries to fight back

For your example: influenza virus actively destroys host cells as part of its replication cycle (lytic cycle), whereas HIV integrates its genome into the genome of its target cells (lysogenic cycle), allowing its replication without the killing of the host cell. Although the infected T-cell is still alive, it loses most function because HIV has mechanisms of switching off normal function in favour of viral replication. In addition, the interferon response is largely suppressed in HIV infection, thus you don’t get quite the same scale of rapid onset inflammation and other indications of disease that are obvious in an influenza infection.

There are many other reasons why one particular microorganism might cause a more severe disease, of course.

This post was edited by GetOnYourKnees on Mar 10 2018 02:19pm