An HIV positive person is said to have developed AIDS when
- A. antibodies against HIV first appear in the blood
- B. the provirus enters the latent phase
- C. reverse transcriptase is detected in the plasma
- D. the CD4 count falls below about 200 cells per microlitre and opportunistic infections appear
Explanation
AIDS is the late clinical stage, defined by the collapse of helper T cell numbers to roughly a fifth of normal together with opportunistic infections or certain cancers. The appearance of antibodies is seroconversion, which happens within weeks of infection and marks only that the person is HIV positive, often with years of good health still ahead. Latency is the long symptom free phase before AIDS, not AIDS itself.
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