This past Tuesday on NBC’s Today Show, actor Charlie Sheen wanted to addressed talk about his health, and he confirmed that he has the HIV virus.

Sheen, 50, said he is not sure how he contracted the virus. Since his diagnosis four years ago, he said, he has informed every sexual partner of his condition. He called it “impossible” that he had transferred the virus to others.

He first went in to be tested for various diseases after a night of headaches and profuse sweating, and was told exactly what was wrong with him. After this diagnosis, he told a small number of people who were very close to him that he thought he could trust. However, in the end he had to give out a total of $10 million to keep people quiet about his condition.

Charlie Sheen does not, however, have AIDS at the present moment. HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, attacks the body’s white blood cells which defend the body from infection and disease, which makes the victim much more susceptible to rare and dangerous other diseases, and after HIV progresses far enough and has destroyed enough white blood cells for the person to have contracted another potentially life-threatening disease such as tuberculosis or pneumonia then at that point is the person classified as having AIDS.

In the United States there are two main ways HIV is transmitted, through sexual activity and sharing of hypodermic needles, syringes or any equipment used to administer or handle drugs. As far as sexual transmission, anal sex is the most likely to spread the disease, followed by vaginal sex and having multiple partners.

In his interview, Sheen denied the possibility of this stemming from drug use, claiming he is one hundred percent clean now, but did admit to drinking and meeting with prostitutes. Sheen said during his interview that he had unprotected sex “under the care of my doctor” with two women since he was diagnosed but that it was impossible that he had transferred the virus to them. While Doctor Robert Huizenga  did not agree that it’s impossible, he did say it was highly unlikely.

Sheen said that he was taking a large amount of various HIV drugs, four pills a day and that he had not missed a day of medication, even while struggling with depression and substance abuse. Huizenga backed up his comment, saying that Sheen was undergoing lab tests every three to four months that showed the virus was at low levels.

“It’s no longer a death sentence,” Boswell said of HIV. “It’s a very different time now. Most people just diagnosed with HIV will live an almost normal life span if they get an early diagnosis, appropriate care and stay on their medications.”