• Question: Is there a disease that could kill you but you would never realise you had.

    Asked by to Bethany, Hannah, Keith, Peter, Ramya on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Hannah Tanner

      Hannah Tanner answered on 19 Jun 2014:


      I think with most infectious diseases you’d be aware something was wrong before you died.

      There are however various infections you can have for a long time without having any obvious symptoms. HIV is an example of this. A person could have HIV for years before it eventually weakened their immune system to the point where they started getting ill.

    • Photo: Peter Elliott

      Peter Elliott answered on 19 Jun 2014:


      I’ve not come across any diseases that are able to kill you without your knowledge. You could ignore the symptoms of your illness and never actually know what it was that ended up killing you but that would be pretty foolish.
      Many years ago people knew less about diseases then we do now so it would be highly likely that people died and doctors wouldn’t know what the cause was but these days I think that is much less likely

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