Having AIDS is a death sentence
Those times have gone when there were not enough medications to counter the threat. In today’s day and age, living with AIDS is possible. Having proper access to antiretroviral treatment enables a person to lead a happy, healthy, and full life.
I’ll get HIV by living around people who have tested positive
HIV cannot be transferred from an HIV-positive person through touch, sweat, saliva, tears, or urine. The only way you can get it from is infected blood, semen, breast milk or vaginal fluid.
AIDS can be diagnosed by appearance
On the contrary; in the first few weeks or months of contracting the virus, a person may look better than ever. But during this time, the virus count in the blood is also the highest. Visual signs like facial wasting and hunched back cannot be taken as indicators of HIV.
People in monogamous relationships don’t need to be tested
Prevention is better than cure. It’s better to get your partner tested, as that is the only way of guaranteeing your safety. If you feel that your partner is straying sexually or taking IV drugs, it becomes even more imperative.
Having multiple partners and drug addiction is the basis for HIV/AIDS
Though they contribute heavily to the spread of the virus, promiscuity and drug addiction are not the only ways that the virus spreads. It can also infect a new-born if one of the parents is HIV-positive, or by an infected needle used by mistake, or by infected blood that has somehow been transferred unknowingly.