If I Get Infected Fluid From An Hiv
No, HIV is not always passed on from someone living with HIV. There are lots of reasons why this is the case. For example, if the HIV-positive person is on effective treatment it will reduce the amount of HIV in their body. If a doctor confirms that the virus has reached undetectable levels it means there is no risk of passing it on.
If youre concerned that youve been exposed to HIV you may be eligible to take post-exposure prophylaxis , which stops the virus from becoming an infection. However its not available everywhere and has to be taken within 72 hours of possible exposure to be effective.
Its really important to take a HIV test every time you think you have been at risk of HIV.
When Can You Get Tested For Hiv
Depending on the type of test, the window period is between 10 days and 3 months.
Until you pass the window period and get your results, its a good idea to avoid activities that can result in another exposure.
This means sticking with lower risk activities, like kissing and masturbation, and using barrier protection for any other sexual activity.
Youre also able to transmit the virus during this period, so its important to let any potential sexual partners know your status is up in the air.
What We Know About Injecting Silicone
Silicone injections can be done safely by a health care provider, but sometimes people inject silicone with friends or acquaintances at parties. Theres a chance that someone can get or transmit HIV if an HIV-negative person uses needles, syringes, and other injection equipment after someone with HIV has used them. This is because the needle, syringe, or other injection equipment may have blood in them, and blood can carry HIV. Likewise, youre at risk for getting or transmitting hepatitis B and C if you share needles, syringes, or other injection equipment because these infections are also transmitted through blood.
More information:More information:
More information: Hepatitis B and C are viruses that infect the liver. Many people with hepatitis B or C dont know they have it because they dont feel sick. Even if you dont feel sick, you can transmit the virus to others. The only way to know for sure if you have hepatitis B or C is to get tested. Your health care provider will recommend a hepatitis B or C test if you have risk factors for these infections, such as injection drug use. If you dont have a health care provider, click here to find contact information for your local health department.
If a person with HIV takes their HIV medicine as prescribed and gets and keeps an undetectable viral load , their chance of transmitting HIV through sharing needles, syringes, or other drug injection equipment is reduced.
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Risk By Sexual Activity
When discussing HIV risk, people often try to ascertain which “type” of sex is riskier vaginal, anal, or oral. From a purely statistical standpoint, anal sex is considered the highest risk activity with an almost 18-fold greater risk of infection compared to vaginal sex.
But this assessment is somewhat misleading, at least from an individual perspective. While vaginal sex may pose a lower risk comparatively, the figures neither take into account the way in which the disease is distributed between men and women nor the vulnerabilities which place some individuals at extremely high risk of infection.
Women are three to four times more likely to get HIV from men than the other way around. A young woman is more likely to get HIV from her first sexual encounter than her male partner.
There are some men who are far more likely to get HIV than others. Studies have shown, for example, that uncircumcised men are more than twice as likely to get HIV after vaginal sex than circumcised men.
Vulnerabilities vary by individual, so assessing the real risk of vaginal sex requires a better understanding of the factors that place some women and men at greater risk than others.
All Exposures Are Not Equal
The results of several meta-analyses suggest that some types of sex carry on average a higher risk of HIV transmission than others. Below are estimates from meta-analyses that have combined the results of studies conducted in high-income countries. For types of sex where meta-analysis estimates do not exist, numbers from individual studies are provided.
Anal Sex
A meta-analysis exploring the risk of HIV transmission through unprotected anal sex was published in 2010. The analysis, based on the results of four studies, estimated the risk through receptive anal sex to be 1.4%. This risk was similar regardless of whether the receptive partner was a man or woman.
No meta-analysis estimates currently exist for insertive anal sex but two individual studies were conducted to calculate this risk. The first, published in 1999, calculated the risk to be 0.06% . However, due to the design of the study, this number likely underestimated the risk of HIV transmission. The second study, published in 2010, was better designed and estimated the risk to be 0.11% for circumcised men and 0.62% for uncircumcised men.
Vaginal Sex
A meta-analysis of 10 studies exploring the risk of transmission through vaginal sex was published in 2009. It estimated the risk of HIV transmission through receptive vaginal sex to be 0.08% .
A meta-analysis of three studies exploring the risk from insertive vaginal sex was estimated to be 0.04% .
Oral Sex
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Stay On Top Of Medications Including Art Prep And Pep
Weve come a long way in HIV treatment and prevention, and some drugs can help you reduce the risk of transmission if youre living with HIV or are having sex with someone who is.
Talk with a medical professional about:
- ART: Antiretroviral therapy helps a person living with HIV stay healthy by lowering the viral load. Most people who take it as prescribed can lower their viral load to an undetectable level, so they cant transmit the virus to others.
- PrEP: A person whos HIV-negative significantly reduces their risk of contracting HIV by taking PrEP consistently.
- PEP: In the event of potential exposure to HIV, PEP is available for emergency use. It can help prevent HIV infection if started within 72 hours of exposure.
What Are The Stages Of Hiv
When people with HIV dont get treatment, they typically progress through three stages. But HIV medicine can slow or prevent progression of the disease. With new medicines and treatments, progression to Stage 3 is less common today than in the early days of HIV.
Stage 1: Acute HIV Infection
- People have a large amount of HIV in their blood. They are very contagious.
- Some people have flu-like symptoms. This is the bodys natural response to infection.
- But some people may not feel sick right away or at all.
- If you have flu-like symptoms and think you may have been exposed to HIV, seek medical care and ask for a test to diagnose acute infection.
Stage 2: Chronic HIV Infection
- This stage is also called asymptomatic HIV infection or clinical latency.
- HIV is still active but reproduces at very low levels.
- People may not have any symptoms or get sick during this phase.
- Without taking HIV medicine, this period may last a decade or longer, but some may progress faster.
- People can transmit HIV in this phase.
- At the end of this phase, the amount of HIV in the blood goes up and the CD4 cell count goes down. The person may have symptoms as the virus levels increase in the body, and the person moves into Stage 3.
- People who take HIV medicine as prescribed may never move into Stage 3.
Stage 3: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
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How Is Hiv Diagnosed
HIV is diagnosed using three different types of tests available: nucleic acid tests , antigen/antibody tests, and antibody tests. HIV tests are typically performed on blood or oral fluid. The tests may also be performed on urine.
Talk to your health care provider about what type of HIV test is right for you.
Interpreting The Numberswhat Additional Information Needs To Be Provided
Some clients may see these numbers and think their risk of HIV transmission is low. Therefore, caution is needed when interpreting them. If these numbers are provided to clients, they should be accompanied by information that helps shed light on why the risk may be higher than it seems.
Transmission can occur after one exposure.
It is important to emphasize that a person could become infected from having unprotected sex once or a person could have unprotected sex many times and not become infected, regardless of how low or high the risk per exposure is.
A risk of 1% would mean that an average of one infection would occur if 100 HIV-negative people were exposed to HIV through a certain type of sex. It does not mean that a person needs to be exposed 100 times for HIV infection to occur.
These are estimates of average risk in the absence of biological factors that increase risk.
The numbers in the table above are rough estimates. They are averages and do not represent the risk from all exposures to HIV through a certain type of sex.
The more exposures, the greater the risk.
Although the risk of HIV transmission from a single exposure may seem low to some people, this risk increases over multiple exposures. In other words, a person who is exposed to HIV more often has a greater overall risk of HIV transmission than someone who is exposed less often.
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What We Know About Vaginal Sex
When a woman has vaginal sex with a partner who has HIV, HIV can enter her body through the mucous membranes that line the vagina and cervix. Most women who get HIV get it from vaginal sex. Even if a womans male partner withdraws or pulls out before ejaculating, she can still get infected because pre-seminal fluid can carry HIV.
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On average, an HIV-negative woman has about a 1 in 1,250 chance of getting HIV every time she has vaginal sex with a man who has HIV.
On average, a woman with HIV has about a 1 in 2,500 chance of transmitting HIV every time she has vaginal sex with an HIV-negative man.
For an HIV-negative woman, anal sex is about 17 times more risky than vaginal sex for getting HIV from a partner with HIV.
For a woman with HIV, anal sex is about 3 times more risky than vaginal sex for transmitting HIV to an HIV-negative partner.
If the partner with HIV takes HIV medicine as prescribed, and gets and keeps an undetectable viral load , their partner has effectively no risk of getting HIV through sex. See how receptive vaginal sex compares to other sexual activities here.
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On average, an HIV-negative man has about a 1 in 2,500 chance of getting HIV every time he has vaginal sex with a woman who has HIV.
On average, a man with HIV has about a 1 in 1,250 chance of transmitting HIV every time he has vaginal sex with an HIV-negative woman.
See how insertive vaginal sex compares to other sexual activities here.
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Low/no Risk Sexual Practices
There are a number of sexual practices that present no or low risk for HIV transmission that you and a partners can enjoy. These include the following:
NO RISK
Massage and rubbing bodies against each other presents no risk of passing on HIV.
RimmingYou cannot acquire or pass on HIV by rimming . However, hepatitis A and gut infections such as shigella are easily passed on this way.
KissingSaliva does not transmit HIV meaning kissing is completely safe.
WatersportsThe terms watersports and piss-play refer to sexual acts involving urine. HIV is not present in urine so watersports carry no risk of HIV transmission.
LOW RISK
Oral sexOral sex carries a very small risk for HIV transmission. For more detailed information, check out our Oral Sex page.
FingeringPlaying with someones arse or vagina with your fingers is a low risk activity for passing on HIV. However, trimmed fingernails and thorough hand washing is a good idea to help prevent damage to the wall of the anus or vagina and to lessen the risk of passing or acquiring a sexually transmitted infection .
FistingFisting means inserting your fist in someones arse or vagina. Fists can create serious cuts in the lining of the arse or vagina, which can allow HIV to be passed on if the person being fisted is then fucked without a condom. The person doing the fisting could also get HIV if they have any cuts or scratches. Latex gloves are important for protecting both participants. Surgical gloves are best.
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If You Took Pep Afterward
High-five!
Post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP, is highly effective at reducing the risk of contracting HIV from sexual activity if started within 72 hours of the possible exposure and taken consistently until finished.
How likely is this generally?
Theres no number to quantify the risk of swallowing seminal fluid.Though swallowing does increase the risk of HIV some, fellatio is considered a lower risk activity overall.
Hiv And Maternal Transmission
HIV can be passed from mother to child during pregnancy, delivery, or through breastfeeding. If left untreated throughout these stages, there is a 15-45% chance of an HIV positive mother transmitting the virus to their child . However there are treatment options to prevent this from happening.
If pregnancy occurs and there has been potential HIV exposure, ask a healthcare provider about getting tested for HIV as early as possible. Taking medications called antiretroviral therapy as prescribed can reduce the viral load so that the baby has a very low chance of contracting HIV .
A person with HIV should not breastfeed their child, as breast milk can transmit HIV. Even if a person is taking ART and their viral loads are undetectable, they should still not breastfeed.
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What We Know About Injecting Drugs
The risk for getting or transmitting HIV is very high if an HIV-negative person uses needles, syringes, or other drug injection equipment after someone with HIV has used them. This is because the needles, syringes, or other injection equipment may have blood in them, and blood can carry HIV. Likewise, youre at risk for getting or transmitting hepatitis B and C if you share needles, syringes, or other injection equipment because these infections are also transmitted through blood.
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In 2017, 6% of new HIV diagnoses in the United States were attributed to injection drug use and 3% were attributed to injection drug use and male-to-male sexual contact . On average, an HIV-negative person has about a 1 in 160 chance of getting HIV every time they share needles, syringes, or other injection equipment with a person who has HIV.
More Information There may be extremely tiny amounts of blood in syringes or works that you may not be able to see, but could still carry HIV. Be aware that HIV can survive in a used syringe for up to 42 days depending on temperature and other factors.
There are medicines to treat hepatitis B. If youve never had hepatitis B, theres a vaccine to prevent it. There are medicines to treat hepatitis C, but they arent right for everyone. Theres no vaccine to prevent hepatitis C. Talk to your health care provider to learn more about hepatitis B and C.
Strategies To Reduce Risk
As with any other mode of HIV transmission, prevention requires a combination of strategies to more effectively:
- Reduce the infectivity of the HIV-positive partner
- Reduce the susceptibility of the HIV-negative partner
Current evidence has shown that the consistent use of antiretroviral therapy in the HIV-infected partner completely eliminates the risk of HIV transmission when viral activity is suppressed to undetectable levels.
The effectiveness of the strategy known as Treatment as Prevention , is evidenced by the PARTNER1 and PARTNER2 studies in which not a single HIV infection occurred among 1,770 gay and heterosexual mixed-status couples despite engaging condomless anal or vaginal sex.
The studies, which ran from 2010 to 2018, showed unequivocally that undetectable equals untransmittable in a real-world setting.
The use of pre-exposure prophylaxis , whereby the uninfected partner is prescribed a daily dose of the HIV drug Truvada, can also reduce risk. Studies have shown that when taken daily, PrEP reduces the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99%.
Although these figures may suggest that condoms are no longer needed, neither TasP nor PrEP can prevent other sexually transmitted diseases.
Moreover, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , only 59.8% of Americans with HIV are able to achieve an undetectable viral load. Without complete viral suppression, TasP is rendered useless, placing the uninfected partner at risk.
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You Took Pep Afterward
If you started it in the first 72 hours after the experience and continued to take it as directed, your chances of contracting HIV are slim.
How likely is this generally?
Even just the tip can expose you to HIV. It may not be as risky as, say, full-on anal or vaginal penetration with ejaculation, but its still risky.
Opt for oral for lower risk pleasure or use a condom.
Does Hiv Viral Load Affect Getting Or Transmitting Hiv
Yes. Viral load is the amount of HIV in the blood of someone who has HIV. Taking HIV medicine daily as prescribed can make the viral load very lowso low that a test cant detect it .
People with HIV who take HIV medicine daily as prescribed and get and keep an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of transmitting HIV to an HIV-negative partner through sex.
HIV medicine is a powerful tool for preventing sexual transmission of HIV. But it works only as long as the HIV-positive partner gets and keeps an undetectable viral load. Not everyone taking HIV medicine has an undetectable viral load. To stay undetectable, people with HIV must take HIV medicine every day as prescribed and visit their healthcare provider regularly to get a viral load test. Learn more.
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