Sex and HIV
It’s important that young people living with HIV understand that there are only a few ways HIV can be passed between people, including having sex without a condom.
They also need to understand that a person living with HIV who is taking antiretroviral
therapies (ART) may have an ‘undetectable HIV viral load’. This means they still have HIV but ART has reduced the amount of HIV in their blood to such low quantities that it can no longer be detected by a standard blood test. If their HIV is undetectable, there is zero risk of transmitting the virus to sexual partners.
The phrase U=U (undetectable = untransmittable) is now widely used. Find out more about U=U.
