After taking this course you will understand that the natural history of HIV infection in an average patient without antiretroviral therapy from the time of HIV transmission to death is 10-11 years. Immediately after infection, the virus is harbored in the gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) the lymphatic tissue of the small bowel. The early phase of infection is characterized by viral amplification in GALT and peak viremia that is often associated with symptoms of the acute retroviral syndrome and massive depletion of activated and memory cells primarily from GALT.
