Appendix: AIDS Case Definition
Download a printable PDF version (45 KB)A person who has tested HIV positive is diagnosed with AIDS when:
- the person's CD4 cell count falls below 200 cells/ml, OR
- the person is diagnosed with any of the following conditions or diseases1:
- Candidiasis of bronchi, trachea, or lungs
- Candidiasis, esophageal
- Cervical cancer, invasive
- Coccidioidomycosis, disseminated or extrapulmonary
- Cryptococcosis, extrapulmonary
- Cryptosporidiosis, chronic intestinal (>1 month duration)
- Cytomegalovirus disease (other than liver, spleen, or nodes)
- Cytomegalovirus retinitis (with loss of vision)
- Encephalopathy, HIV-related
- Herpes simplex: chronic ulcer(s) (>1 month duration)
- Histoplasmosis, disseminated
- Isosporiasis, chronic intestinal (>1 month duration)
- Kaposi's sarcoma
- Lymphoid interstitial pneumonitis (in children)
- Lymphoma, Burkitt's (or equivalent term)
- Lymphoma, immunoblasic (or equivalent term)
- Lymphoma, primary, of brain
- Mycobacterium avium comples or M. Kansasii, disseminated or extrapulmonary
- Mycobacterium tuberculosis,any site (pulmonary or extrapulmonary)
- Mycobacterium, other species or unidentified species, disseminates or extrapulmonary
- Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia
- Pneumonia, recurrent
- Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy
- Salmonella septicemia, recurrent
- Toxoplasmosis of brain
- Wasting syndrome due to HIV
- A person who is HIV negative or of undetermined serostatus may be diagnosed with AIDS when other causes of immunodeficiency are ruled out and the person is definitively diagnosed with one of the AIDS indicator diseases listed above.
1 MMRW, Vol. 41/No. RR-17
