Churches, Channels of Hope

Handout: What does HIV do?

When you cut yourself and you bleed, the blood is red because there are many
red blood cells. These cells are a transport service that carry oxygen from the
lungs and distribute it to the rest of the body. There are also other kinds of cells in
the blood, called white blood cells. These white blood cells make up the immune
system, an army that defends our bodies from disease and fight off germs when
we do get sick. There are many different kinds of soldiers in the immune system,
but the most important ones are called lymphocytes. There are different kinds of
lymphocytes.

The immune system is organised like an army. Like any good army, there are gen-
erals that are responsible for ensuring that everything runs smoothly. In the army
that is the body’s immune system, these generals are called CD4 cells.

These generals constantly patrol the body on the lookout for any invaders trying
to cause problems. When they detect any problems, they mobilise the rest of the
army.

There are two kinds of soldiers that are particularly important. These are the B-
lymphocytes (also known as just “B-cells”) and the killer T-cells. The B-cells make
chemicals called antibodies that they fire like bullets from a distance.

These antibodies then attack the invader and help kill them. These are not normal
bullets, though, because the B-cells make a new kind of bullet for every kind of
germ that invades the bullet. Each bullet will only attack that one kind of germ.
The killer T-cells are much more vicious. They move in and kill the invaders with
their own hands. Mobilising the army takes time7he two arms of the army (the
B-cells and the killer T-cells) help fight off any would-be invaders

What does HIV do? Well, this is what the virus looks like. Inside, it carries a set of
instructions that describe how to make new viruses.

The thing about viruses as germs is that they cannot make more viruses on their
own – they have to use our bodies to do that. (Other germs like bacteria can
reproduce themselves without using our bodies). The handle that HIV uses to
attack the body is the CD4 molecule. Once HIV gets into the blood, it zooms in on
the CD4 cells and attaches onto the CD4 molecule.

Once it has attached, the virus injects it’s set of instructions into the cell. Our cells
work in a similar way, using a set of instructions, our genes, that describe what
has to happen from day to day in the different parts of our bodies. However, here
is where the virus has a problem. The language that our cells use is different from
the language that the virus uses. The CD4 cells therefore cannot understand the
virus’ instructions. You know what the virus does? It simply carries a translator
around with it.
This translator (called reverse transcriptase) makes a copy of the virus’ instructions
in a language that the cell can understand.

The next thing that happens is that the virus inserts it’s set of instructions into the
cell’s instructions. At this point, the virus becomes part of the cell, and therefore
of the person’s body.

Herein lies one of our major problems in treating HIV infection: to get rid of the
virus now, we have to kill off this CD4 cell (and all of the CD4 cells that are infect-
ed).

At this point, the virus takes the cell over, and turns it into a virus making factory.
It forces the cell to carry out it’s set of instructions, making all the parts needed
for new viruses: new instructions, new translators, new packaging.

All of this is packaged into new viruses, and the cell releases thousands of new
viruses that can now go out and attack more CD4 cells. This photograph shows
this release process. The photo is of part of the surface of a CD4 cell. Each of the
green dots is an HIV being released.

This document has been made available by:

THE CHRISTIAN AIDS BUREAU
Developed by Dr Francois Cilliers,
University of Stellenbosch, March 2002. Email: management@cabsa.co.za
PO Box 16,
Wellington, 7654
South Africa