Undetectable = Untransmittable?

[dingobat]

Heard from one of my gay friend regarding this. He claimed that if a person maintain undetectable HIV for at least 6 months, that person cannot sexually transmit HIV to another person.

I did a bit of google search and turns out that there are studies validating this statement and many AIDS organisation around the world have endorsed this message. Even CDC from the USA has endorsed this statement.

What do you guys think?

[iicecube]

What does that mean? Are you saying that the virus die off inside and wont xfer to other?

[sammyboyfor]

Heard from one of my gay friend regarding this. He claimed that if a person maintain undetectable HIV for at least 6 months, that person cannot sexually transmit HIV to another person.

I did a bit of google search and turns out that there are studies validating this statement and many AIDS organisation around the world have endorsed this message. Even CDC from the USA has endorsed this statement.

What do you guys think?

If the experts concur who are we to disagree? :rolleyes:

[dingobat]

What does that mean? Are you saying that the virus die off inside and wont xfer to other?

The virus is still inside your body but has been virally suppressed to such low levels by antiviral medications that it cannot be sexually transmitted. Gay communities around the world are celebrating this fact for obvious reason.;)

[cocky1234]

Trying to play Russian roulette? Of course Gay are happy. They are even more happier if they are allowed to do whatever they want.

[ahgore]

Possible to go undetected without medication meh?

[IAmAwesome]

there are studies validating this

You have any literature or links pointing to this? It would be interesting to read about it though

[victor125]

It's the same reason why one person HIV+ still can live happily and normally with HIV- person, have regular sex and HIV- won't get infected too. They call that a serodiscordant couple.

HIV+ takes their medication regularly, makes virus count low enough that won't be transmitted. They call it undetectable viral load. Virus still in their body, HIV for life but no longer death sentence, and very unlikely for it to be transmitted. Of course doctor will recommend HIV- person regularly take medication to prevent become infected too.

http://www.aidsinfonet.org/fact_sheets/view/613
http://www.who.int/features/2012/living_hiv/en/
http://www.catie.ca/en/pif/spring-2015/hiv-prevention-within-serodiscordant-couples-changing-paradigm

[iicecube]

HIV+ takes their medication regularly, makes virus count low enough that won't be transmitted. They call it undetectable viral load. Virus still in their body, HIV for life but no longer death sentence, and very unlikely for it to be transmitted. Of course doctor will recommend HIV- person regularly take medication to prevent become infected too.

Than the medical bills will be shot high rock for those couple, live with fear and bills will be a problem soon or later.

[dingobat]

You have any literature or links pointing to this? It would be interesting to read about it though

This is the CDC's statement itself on undetectable viral load.

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/library/dcl/dcl/092717.html

Scientific advances have shown that antiretroviral therapy (ART) preserves the health of people living with HIV. We also have strong evidence of the prevention effectiveness of ART. When ART results in viral suppression, defined as less than 200 copies/ml or undetectable levels, it prevents sexual HIV transmission. Across three different studies, including thousands of couples and many thousand acts of sex without a condom or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), no HIV transmissions to an HIV-negative partner were observed when the HIV-positive person was virally suppressed. This means that people who take ART daily as prescribed and achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to an HIV-negative partner.

U = U is being run by a guy called Bruce Richman. His campaign website lists all the studies to back up the statement.

https://www.preventionaccess.org/copy-of-undetectable-untransmittabl
https://www.preventionaccess.org/faq

3. What is the evidence?

The conclusion is based on the force of real world and research experience including PARTNER, HPTN 052, Opposites Attract, and the Swiss Statement.3-11 For instance, in the PARTNER study, there were ZERO transmissions out of 58,000 condomless sex acts between people with HIV with undetectable viral loads and their partners who are HIV negative. In the the most recent study called Opposites Attract, there were no transmissions out of 17,000 condomless sex acts between men. Since the advent of combination therapy, there have been no confirmed reports of anyone with an undetectable viral load sexually transmitting HIV.