Word: hiv
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...statement, published in the Bulletin of Swiss Medicine by respected and leading Swiss HIV experts, was certainly meant to pique and challenge both doctors and patients to rethink what it means to live with an HIV infection that is, for all intents and purposes, under control with antiretroviral medications (ARVs). It opens up the possibility that at least some people infected with HIV might be able to go without condoms and have unprotected sex. But experts warn that the challenge may only confuse patients about an already complex disease and the safest ways to both treat and contain...
...World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) responded promptly by reaffirming their recommendation that all HIV positive people should use condoms during sexual activity to prevent the spread of the disease. "The issue that the Swiss article raises is an important thing to consider," says Dr. Robert Janssen, director of the division of HIV-AIDS Prevention at CDC. "But I think it's premature to make the type of recommendation that they are making...
...provocative as it is, the Swiss statement is actually based on some well-established scientific facts that AIDS researchers have accepted for some time now. Studies funded by the National Institutes of Health in Uganda, for example, showed that among heterosexual couples in which only one partner is HIV positive, the chances of spreading HIV are low if the HIV positive partner has low levels of virus circulating in the blood. Such viral load is also a key factor in determining whether HIV-positive pregnant women pass on the infection to their unborn children: women with lower viral loads have...
...fact, viral-load tests are only rough guides for how much virus is circulating in an infected person's body; it's well known that HIV levels can blip upwards periodically. In addition, viral-load readings are generally done once every three months, so even if the virus is undetectable, which means there are fewer than 40 copies of HIV per ml of blood, there is no way of knowing what a person's viral count is at any given time. "There is no way of knowing what the viral count is for a person at home about to engage...
Fauci also notes that HIV tends to become compartmentalized in the body, which means that tests measuring HIV levels in the blood may not accurately reflect how much virus is sequestered in genital tissues and in fluid such as semen, particularly if the body is fighting off other infections with an inflammatory response...