With Charlie Sheen talking about his HIV infection in public and coming clean about his past, there suddenly seems to be an increased buzz about AIDS and HIV on social media. Amidst all the tweets, opinions, dark jokes, warnings and panic inducing alarms, it's easy to lose track of genuine scientific facts. One of the risks of having 'half knowledge' is you blur the lines between HIV and AIDS. Here are a few well-established facts that help you know the difference between the two.

3. HIV can be transmitted from person to person.

"Don't give me AIDS!", is one of the many wrong lines people have used over the years, back when awareness was pretty low. People don't infect other people with AIDS. But HIV can be transmitted from person to person - largely through exchange of bodily fluids (mostly commonly through unprotected sexual intercourse) and through sharing of contaminated needles. Less commonly, it can pass through tainted blood transfusion or a mother can pass the infection to her child during pregnancy.

4. HIV can be diagnosed using a simple test.

As your body creates anti-bodies to fight HIV, a simple blood or saliva test that detects the presence of these anti-bodies is enough to detect HIV infection. However, this test only works several weeks after infection. There's another test that detects the presence of antigens produced by HIV. This can detect HIV just days after the infection. Both tests are quite simple and are known to be accurate.

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