What this virus does is it infects special wide blood cells, special lymphocytes of that our immune system and transforms these healthy lymphocytes into virus producing cells that ultimately lose all their functionality as immune cells, they lose their ability to defend our body from infections and from invading pathogens. And this greatly weakens our immune system and leads to a medical condition known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or simply AIDS. Now, AIDS is not the same thing as HIV. HIV is that pathogenic agent that eventually leads to AIDS. So this is the cause and this is the effect. So don't use these two terms interchangeably.