by Keiron Audain

Created on: September 22, 2009   Last Updated: September 25, 2009

HIV positive people on treatment can still spread the virus

One of the best decisions I ever made was to volunteer for an HIV charity in my area. It exposed me to so much information that I would normally take for granted, given the fact that I have studied viruses at university, and worked with HIV in the lab.

I got involved in outreach work, where we would go out into the community to engage people about HIV and sexual health, and provide information and advice about HIV and the services the charity offers.

On my first day on the road, the other outreach worker and I paid a visit to the local mobile phone shop, and had a very interesting conversation with the store owner.

"I know at least four people with HIV, and one of them is highly promiscuous. 'I've got a friend; well he's not really a friend, just someone I know, who is involved with this person with HIV. I'm not sure what I should do; should I say something to either of them, or should I just not get involved?"

The answer that was given to him was seemed simple yet very effective: refer either or both of them to an organisation that provides confidential counselling and information about HIV and sexual health within their community.

The reality of the current HIV pandemic is that a number of people diagnosed with HIV, who feel fine and respond well to treatment or may not even need treatment just yet, can often become a tad bit careless with practicing safer sex.

The question that now arises in my mind is - how do you prevent that feeling of maintaining control over your body after being infected by one of the most feared viruses ever, from allowing complacency to take charge, thus causing the spread of even more infection? In other words, how should we promote social sexual responsibility?

Some people might feel they don't still need to use a condom seeing that they have a low viral load, which is the amount of HIV particles found in the blood. After all, if the immune system is containing the virus, then maybe they're not that infectious right? Wrong - it's more like a case of sexual Russian roulette.

A low viral load and no symptoms of illness or drug side effects, in no way shape or form means a person cannot transmit HIV. As a matter of fact, if a person on treatment transmits the virus to someone who was uninfected, the newly infected person will be resistant to the cocktail of drugs that kept the person who transmitted the virus in their state of well-being - a very important issue that many

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