why is there a wide variation in the effects of hiv infection in different individuals?

Our bodies are very different. There really are only two variants of HIV. The greatest variable is the health of the immune system of the individual, and the ability to afford the proper medication. HIV in and of itself doesn’t really affect your health, until it becomes AIDS.AIDS is not a particular disease, but rather a systemic cascade of diseases, this is known as a syndrome. A syndrome is comprised of two or more diseases. AIDS sufferers get Karposi’s carcinoma, and pneumonia (this is usually what they die of, not HIV, though HIV caused the weakened immune response which allowed the pneumonia pathogen to thrive). They also suffer from skin ulcers and many, many other problems rarely seen in people without AIDS. Source(s):Medical background.

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becuase its a matter of your own imune system, and how your body reacts to the virus, and not everyone elses that why when there given medication, its varies becuase of the virus in each person, teehee There is more than one strain of HIV. They have different rates to growth and lethality.

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Nobody has any idea.

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A lot of incorrect answers here. HIV comes in two major strains, HIV-1 and HIV-2, however in the USA HIV-1 is by far the predominent strain, so the variation in response to the virus between people in the US is NOT a function of them being infected by HIV-1 versus HIV-2. Within each of these however are a number of genotypes, which are mutations of the basic virus. There are many dozens of these known and cataloged to date.However, the cause of the variation in response to infection between people is not primarily due to being infected with different genotypes. The primary cause is the genetic variation between people themselves. Each person has a different immune system response to the HIV virus. Also various receptors on the cells surfaces differ between people, so for example people that have few or no CCR5 receptors on the surfaces of their white blood cells are not very badly affected by HIV, and some never get sick at all, because the virus can’t enter the cell if it can’t attach to this receptor. Similarly, there are other genetic variations between people that can thwart the virus in other stages of its replication.

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Individuals who are known to be HIV positive for 10 years and longer and have never been treated but still have normal lab values for T-cell, viral load and have never had any HIV related illness are considered to be “long-term non-progressors. It’s been well reported in ethnic groups such as African Americans. The health of an individual upon being infected may also have an affect on their state of health while living with HIV. For example, Magic Johnson, an exceptional athlete-eating and exercising. This gentleman takes the same medications that are widely available in the United States but most of us don’t eat and exercise the way he did. Lean muscle mass seems to have an effect on the outcome of those with HIV-but then well-toned, lean muscle mass basically equals good nutrition and general lifestyle, right?

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well everyone is different and different things react to different people in different ways,there isn’t really a right or wrong answer to this question to be honest with you,it is just that everything people take reacts to them in different ways depending on the actual individual.Also there is more than one type of HIV which would be sending off different reactions/side effects too.

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this is a well studied one and your answer is this- if you or someones has HIV and so do you ,and you know this and don’t use condoms then your chances of mixing your HIV virus are to great to be ignored and then there is a new strain. Even harder to kill

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Size DOES matter!