HIV Prevention - A.J.

How can a person reduce the risk of getting HIV?

Anyone can get HIV, but you can take steps to protect yourself from HIV.

• Get tested for HIV.

• Talk to your partner about HIV testing and get tested before you have sex, whether you know your partner well or not.

• Choose less risky sexual behaviors. HIV is mainly spread by having anal or vaginal sex without a condom or without taking medicine to prevent or treat HIV.

• Use condoms every time you have sex. Use condoms correctly.

• Recognize that the more partners you have, the more likely you are to have a partner with poorly controlled HIV or to have a partner with a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Both of these factors can increase the risk of HIV.

• Get tested and treated for STDs. Insist that your partners get tested and treated, too. Having an STD can increase your risk of getting HIV or spreading it to others.

• Talk to your health care provider about pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). PrEP is an HIV prevention option for people who do not have HIV but who are at risk of getting HIV. PrEP involves taking a specific HIV medicine every day to reduce the risk of getting HIV through sex or injection drug use.

• If you are going to inject drugs, use only sterile drug injection equipment and water, and never share your equipment with others.

How can a person who is HIV positive prevent passing HIV to others?

• Take HIV medicines daily. Treatment with HIV medicines (called antiretroviral therapy or ART) help people with HIV live longer, healthier lives. ART cannot cure HIV, but can reduce the amount of HIV in the body (called the viral load). One of the main goals of ART is to reduce a person's viral load to an undetectable level. An undetectable viral load means that the level of HIV in the blood is too low to be detected by a viral load test. People with HIV who maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of transmitting HIV to an HIV-negative partner through sex.

Here are some other steps you can take to prevent HIV transmission:

*Use condoms correctly every time you have sex.
*Talk to your partner about taking PrEP.
*If you inject drugs, do not share your needles, syringes, or other drug equipment.

Are HIV medicines used at other times to prevent HIV transmission?

Yes, HIV medicines are also used for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and to prevent perinatal transmission of HIV.

·      Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP)
PEP involves taking HIV medicines within 72 hours after a possible exposure to HIV to prevent HIV infection. PEP should be used only in emergency situations. It is not meant for regular use by people who may be exposed to HIV frequently. You can be eligible for PEP if you may have been exposed to HIV during sex, shared needles or other equipment to inject drugs, were sexually assaulted, or may have been exposed to HIV at work.

• Prevention of perinatal transmission of HIV
  Pregnant women living with HIV take HIV medicines for their own health and to prevent perinatal transmission of HIV. After birth, babies born to women living with HIV receive HIV medicine to protect them from infection of HIV that may have passed from mother to child during childbirth.

• NOTE: There are two types of HIV: type 1 and type 2. You can get both types of HIV if you have unprotected sex and its often fatal to have both types of HIV. Protect yourself against HIV type 1 or 2, even if you are HIV positive.