HIV stands for 'Human Immuno-deficiency Virus. This is a virus that people can become infected with and that they can pass to other people.
When someone becomes infected with HIV it begins to attack their immune system, which is the body's defence against illness. This process is not visible.
A person infected with HIV may look and feel perfectly well for many years and they may not know they are infected. Then as the person's immune system weakens they become vulnerable to illnesses, many of which they would normally fight off.
When a person becomes infected with HIV they are likely as time goes by to be ill more and more often. A person is said to have AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) when, usually several years after first becoming infected with HIV, they have developed one of a number of particularly severe illnesses.
HIV is present in the sexual fluids and blood of infected people. it can also be in the breastmilk of infected women.
A risky activity is anything that makes it possible for the virus to pass from one person to another. This is why having sex without a condom is risky, because the virus, which is present in an infected person's sexual fluids, can pass directly into the body of their partner. Using a condom properly is a very effective way of preventing transmission of HIV during sexual intercourse.
Contact with an infected person's blood is risky if it allows the virus to pass into another person's body through cuts, grazes or even cold-sores, in the skin. This is why it can be risky being pricked by, or injecting with, a needle or syringe already used by someone else.
It is also possible for an infected woman to pass the virus on to her unborn baby either before or during birth. HIV can also be passed on through breast-feeding.
Sharing crockery or cutlery
Insect/animal bites
Touching, hugging, shaking hands
Eating food prepared by someone with HIV.
Safer sex is used to refer to a range of sexual activities that hold little risk of HIV infection or other STI's.
Safer sex is often taken to mean using a condom when you have sex. Using a condom makes it very hard for infections and HIV to pass between people when they're having sex. Safe sex activities include hugging, touching, caressing and mutual masturbation.
If you have unprotected sex with a partner who has HIV, you can be infected with it, whether it's your first time or not. If it's the first time you have sex or the first time with a new partner, it can be scary enough without having to worry about condoms. But using condoms can be quite sexy - try getting your partner to unroll it for you.