Can Hiv Be Transmitted Through Semen

Do Condoms Stop Hiv Being Passed On

Can HIV transmission occur through contact with ejaculatory fluid? – Dr. Ramakrishna Prasad

Yes.Using a condom correctly prevents contact with semen or vaginal secretions , stopping HIV from being passed on. The virus cannot pass through the latex of the condom.

Condoms should only be used with a water-based lubricant as oil-based lube weakens them.

People with HIV who are on effective treatment and have an undetectable viral load cannot pass on HIV through any of their body fluids.

Its also important to remember that if you have sex without a condom other sexually transmitted infections can be passed on.

Sex without a condom can also result in pregnancy if other contraception is not being used.

When Is Oral Sex More Risky

If you are living with HIV, there is a higher risk of passing on HIV through someone performing oral sex on you, if you are not taking treatment and if you also have an untreated sexually transmitted infection. If you don’t have HIV and you are performing oral sex on someone who does have HIV, you are at more risk of acquiring HIV if you have cuts, sores or abrasions in your mouth or on your gums. There is also more risk if you have an infection in your throat or mouth which is causing inflammation.

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For men, having a high viral load in the blood may also mean that viral load is high in the semen. Factors like untreated sexually transmitted infections can cause viral load in semen to increase.

For women, the levels of HIV in vaginal fluid vary. They are likely to be highest around the time of menstruation , when HIV-bearing cells shed from the cervix are most likely to be found in vaginal fluid, along with blood. Oral sex will therefore be more risky around the time of menstruation.

Additional File : Figure S1

Correlation between semen and blood viral load and presence of individuals with semen viral loads but low blood viral loads in previously published data. All graphs generated from table data in the reports except Olivier et al from supplemental figure 2B. Tachet et al analyzed 52 individuals incl 21 on ART & did not identify who was on ART. Red circles indicate individuals with low blood viral loads and detectable HIV-1 RNA in semen. None of the reports commented on VL data from these individuals. Note that x-axis scales do not always match and that the y-axis scale for Olivier et al is different from the other graphs. Graph from Olivier et al reprinted from J Infect Dis, 209, 117484 , Olivier AJ et al, Distinct cytokine patterns in semen influence local HIV shedding and HIV target cell activation by permission of Oxford University Press.

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Can I Become Infected If My Partner Has Hiv

A partnership where one person is infected with HIV and the other is not can be described as a sero-discordant relationship. There is a risk of HIV transmission if the discordant couple has unprotected sex. However, this risk can be greatly reduced with the use of condoms during vaginal, anal and oral sex. Both partners in a discordant sexual relationship should take on the responsibility of protecting one another from HIV infection.

Can You Get Hiv From A Blood Transfusion

Can you get an STD from manual stimulation?

Receiving a blood transfusion or other products made from blood is safe in the UK as all blood products have been screened for infections such as HIV since 1985.

In countries that dont have strict checks on the safety of their blood supply, receiving contaminated blood can pass the virus on. This can also happen in countries that dont screen other blood products, organs or sperm.

Giving blood has never been a risk.

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One Of The Most Common Stds

Gonorrhea is a very common sexually transmitted infection, especially for teens and people in their 20s. Gonorrhea is sometimes called the clap or the drip.

Gonorrhea is spread through vaginal, anal, and oral sex. The infection is carried in semen , pre-cum, and vaginal fluids. Gonorrhea can infect your penis, vagina, cervix, anus, urethra, throat, and eyes . Most people with gonorrhea dont have any symptoms and feel totally fine, so they might not even know theyre infected.

Gonorrhea is usually easily cured with antibiotics. But if you dont treat gonorrhea early enough, it can lead to more serious health problems in the future. Thats why STD testing is so important the sooner you know you have gonorrhea, the faster you can get rid of it.

You can help prevent gonorrhea by using condoms every time you have sex.

What Should I Do If I Need To Clean Up Blood

HIV does not usually survive long outside of the body, but contact with blood should be avoided.

Hepatitis C can survive in dried blood at room temperature for several weeks, and hepatitis B can survive in dried blood for around a week outside the body.

To clean up blood that has been spilled, wear rubber gloves and mop up the liquid using bleach and warm water . Use warm, soapy water to clean away blood spilled on someones body.

Put the waste, used gloves and bloodied clothes in a plastic bag, seal and throw away.

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What Is Art And How Does It Help Prevent Hiv

Antiretroviral therapy is a combination of medicines that slows down the effects of HIV in your body and can help you stay healthy for many years. It can also lower or even stop your chances of giving HIV to anyone else.

ART lowers the amount of HIV in your body sometimes to the point where HIV wont show up on standard blood tests. If your HIV viral load is so low that certain tests cant see it, its called undetectable. When someone has an undetectable viral load, they cant spread HIV to others during sex.

Its important to remember that even with an undetectable viral load, HIV is still present in your body. If you stop treatment your viral load can go up, making it possible to pass HIV to others you have sex with. Your doctor or nurse can help you find the treatment thats best for you to help keep your viral load low, so you can stay healthy.

Sperm Washing To Prevent Hiv Transmission From Hiv

Is it possible to do HIV test with semen sample & its accuracy? – Dr. Ramakrishna Prasad

Reports on the use of sperm washing to prevent HIV transmission, from HIV-infected men but allowing conception in sero-discordant couples, are currently limited to observational studies. No randomised controlled trial has assessed the benefit or risk of sperm washing to prevent HIV transmission from HIV-infected men but allow conception in sero-discordant couples. Thus, this systematic review identifies the need for a multicentre randomised controlled trial assessing the benefits and possible risks of sperm washing in preventing HIV transmission from HIV-infected men but allow conception in sero-discordant couples.

Sperm washing is a term used to describe the process in which individual spermatozoa are separated from the seminal fluid. Sperm washing is used to prevent HIV transmission but allow conception in sero-discordant couples, where the male is HIV positive, but the female is HIV negative. This procedure is based on the observation that HIV cannot attach itself to spermatozoa, but it can be found in the fluid and cells surrounding spermatozoa.

To determine the benefits and harms of sperm washing of HIV-infected males when used to prevent the transmission of HIV but allowing conception in the HIV-negative female.

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Necessary Conditions For Hiv Infection

HIV is a relatively fragile virus, which is not spread by casual contact. HIV is not easy to catchit must be acquired. In order for HIV to be transmitted, three conditions must occur:

There must be an HIV source.
There must be a sufficient dose of virus.
There must be access to the bloodstream of another person.

Body Fluids That Can Transmit HIV

Anyone infected with the virus is potentially a source of HIV infection. Transmission occurs primarily through infected blood, semen, vaginal secretions, or breast milk. Sweat, tears, saliva, urine, and feces are not capable of transmitting HIV unless visibly contaminated with blood.

In settings such as hospital operating rooms, other fluids such as cerebrospinal fluid, synovial fluid, pleural fluid, pericardial fluid, and amniotic fluid may be considered infectious if the source is HIV positive. These fluids are generally not found outside the hospital setting. Therefore, the most common body fluids considered potentially infectious for HIV are blood, semen, vaginal secretions, and breast milk.

Sufficient Dose

The concentration and amount of HIV necessary for infection to occur is called a sufficient dose.

Blood

Access to another persons bloodstream involves behaviors or circumstances that place someone at risk for infectious fluid entering their bloodstream. The most common of the risk behaviors are unprotected sexual intercourse with an infected person and use of contaminated equipment for injecting drugs.

How Is Hiv Spread From Person To Person

HIV can only be spread through specific activities. In the United States, the most common ways are:

Having vaginal or anal sex with someone who has HIV without using a condom or taking medicines to prevent or treat HIV. Anal sex is riskier than vaginal sex.
Sharing injection drug equipment , such as needles, with someone who has HIV.

Less common ways are:

From mother to child during pregnancy, birth, or breastfeeding. However, the use of HIV medicines and other strategies have helped lower the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to 1% or less in the United States.
Getting stuck with an HIV-contaminated needle or other sharp object. This is a risk mainly for health care workers. The risk is very low.

HIV is spread only in extremely rare cases by:

Having oral sex. But in general, the chance that an HIV-negative person will get HIV from oral sex with an HIV-positive partner is extremely low.

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When Is The Risk Greater

These risk factors can increase the chances for transmission of HIV:

Status: Risk varies based on whether the person with HIV is giving or receiving oral sex. If the person with HIV is receiving oral sex, the person giving it may have a higher risk. Mouths may have more openings in the skin or lesions. Saliva, on the other hand, is not a carrier of the virus.
Viral load: The risk of contracting HIV is higher if the person with HIV has a high viral load. Higher viral loads increase infectivity.
Ejaculation: During oral sex, ejaculation may increase risk for sharing the virus, but ejaculation alone isnt the only possible way of contracting HIV.
Cuts or sores: Openings in the mouth, vagina, anus, or on the penis are possible routes for HIV. These may be cuts or lesions from another infection or condition. For example, HIV-related infections like candidiasis can cause sores that compromise the integrity of the tissue in the mouth. Any break in the skin puts a person at risk for transmitting or contracting the virus.
Menstruation: HIV-bearing cells do shed from the cervix during menstruation. Coming into contact with menstrual blood with the mouth may increase contraction risk.
Urethritis: This condition causes inflammation and irritation in the urethra. It may increase the chances of HIV contraction, too. People with HIV are likely to shed the virus when they have this condition.

Hiv Treatment As Prevention

People with HIV can take ART to lower their chance of transmitting HIV to others.

ART reduces the quantity of HIV in the body, or viral load, and keeps it at a low level.

The term viral load refers to the number of HIV copies per milliliter of blood.

Healthcare professionals define successful viral suppression as having a viral load of less than of HIV per milliliter of blood. Achieving and maintaining viral suppression significantly reduces the risk of HIV transmission.

Other ways to prevent HIV transmission include:

using a condom or other barrier method during sex
reducing the number of sexual partners
getting vaccinated against other STIs, such as HPV and hepatitis B
avoiding using injectable drugs, if possible
if using injectable drugs, avoiding sharing needles and syringes
following all workplace safety protocols

People can speak with a doctor to learn more about their individual risk of contracting HIV.

Anyone concerned about HIV exposure should contact a healthcare professional or a local emergency room to get testedand receive PEP.

Semen Vaginal Fluids And Anal Mucus

If an HIV positive person has sex without a condom, and they do not have an undetectable viral load, HIV can get into the other persons blood because it lives in the semen, vaginal fluid and anal mucus. There does need to be a tear or graze in the other person for the HIV to enter into their body. A condom stops any fluid being passed to the other person, and it also stops unwanted pregnancy and getting other sexually transmitted infections.

How Hiv Cannot Be Spread

From both a biological and epidemiological evidence, HIV cannot and has never been shown to be passed from one person to the next by the following means:

Touching, hugging, kissing or shaking hands
Touching an object an HIV-positive person has touched
Sharing utensils or cups
Eating food prepared by an HIV-positive person
Sharing grooming items, even toothbrushes or razors
Getting spit on by an HIV-positive person
Getting bitten by an HIV-positive person
Touching semen or vaginal fluid
Getting blood from an HIV-positive person on you
Using public fountains, toilet seats, or showers

To date, there has not been a single documented case of transmission by any of these means.

Transmission: Where Does The Hiv Virus Live

Can one get HIV or STD infection on being massaged by an infected person? – Dr. Ramakrishna Prasad

The HIV virus is present in body fluids. Body fluids which can contain significant amounts of HIV are not usually of concern to everyday people amniotic fluid, cerebrospinal fluid and synovial fluid around bone joints, for example, are of concern only to healthcare workers that are involved in invasive surgical procedures.However, the HIV virus is present in the following body fluids in infectious quantities:

Blood and blood products
Vaginal and cervical secretions
Breast milk.

An HIV-positive person may have HIV in very small amounts in other body fluids such as tears, saliva and blister fluid, but usually not in enough amount to be infectious. Contact with saliva, tears, or sweat has never been shown to result in transmission of HIV.

It is via the exchange of bodily fluids containing HIV virus that person-to-person transmission can occur. The main routes of HIV transmission are through:

Unprotected sexual contact with an infected person
Sharing needles with an infected person
From an infected mother to child during pregnancy, during birth or after birth while breastfeeding.

You are at risk if:

You have sex without condoms
You have many sex partners and do not use condoms
Your sex partner has/have sex with other persons without using condoms
You share unsterilized needles for intravenous drug use

Nobody is immune to the HIV virus. Anyone engaging in above activities is at risk of infection.

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Is There Risk Of Hiv Transmission When Having A Tattoo Body Piercing Or Getting A Hair Cut Or Shave

There is a risk of HIV transmission if instruments contaminated with blood are not sterilized between clients. However, people who carry out body piercing or tattooing should follow procedures called ‘universal precautions’, which are designed to prevent the transmission of blood borne infections such as HIV and Hepatitis B.

When having a hair cut there is no risk of infection unless the skin is cut and infected blood gets into the wound. Traditional ‘cut-throat’ razors used by barbers now have disposable blades, which should only be used once, thus eliminating the risk from blood-borne infections such as Hepatitis and HIV.

How Do You Bring This Up To Other Current Or Potential Partners

Ideally, youll have the convo at a time and place thats private and free of interruptions.

Keep it simple and to the point, and be willing to answer their questions honestly. Let them know what youre doing about it, like taking PEP, and when youre supposed to get your results.

Be prepared that they might not be comfortable with getting intimate until you know your status, and respect their decision.

If youre gonna get busy, there are plenty of precautions you and your sexual partner can take to reduce the risk of HIV.

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How To Reduce The Risk

Although the risk of HIV passing to another person through oral sex is low, people can take steps to reduce it further.

For example, people with HIV can avoid ejaculating in the mouth of their sexual partner. They can do this by using a condom or withdrawing the penis before ejaculation.

A dental dam is another option. This is a small latex or silicone sheet that a person places over the vagina, anus, or mouth during sex.

Flossing or brushing the teeth can cause the gums to bleed, so it might also help to avoid this right before sexual activity.

People without HIV can take additional steps to avoid transmission, including:

taking pre-exposure prophylaxis medication beforehand
using condoms or dental dams correctly during all sexual activities
avoiding lubricants with an oil base, such as Vaseline or baby oil
taking post-exposure prophylaxis within a couple of days after the sexual contact
getting regular sexual health checkups

People with HIV should take antiretroviral medication exactly as their doctor recommends.

In the early stages of HIV, people might experience:

a fever
rashes that are not itchy
aching muscles
swollen glands, or lymph nodes
oral sores