Question
How can my partner test HIV positive and I test HIV negative?
16 January 2018. Related: All topics, HIV testing, HIV transmission, Newly diagnosed, Sero different couples.
I went to test HIV with my partner.
I found out that she is positive and I was negative. After six months i went back I tested negative.
Please help as I don’t understand.
Answer
Thanks for your question as your situation is very common.
Has your partner’s positive HIV test been checked by a second test in a lab. All rapid tests, need a positive result to be confirmed. This is because of the small chance of a false-positive result.
If the second test (called “western blot”) is positive then your partner is definitely positive. In this case, how is your partner doing and does she have support?
Even if your partner is HIV positive, it is common for one person in a couple to test positive and the other negative. This can happen even if they have bot been using condoms. This is mostly just luck. Over time, most people will catch HIV if they continue to have sex without a condom.
Even though you have not caught HIV so far, you can still catch HIV in the future. Genetics may explain some cases of protection, but most are just down to luck and chance.
Now you know your partners HIV status, you can still stay together and have sex safely. Condoms or PrEP are both really effective at stopping HIV and not sharing needles.
Also, after your partner gets an undetectable viral load on treatment, the risk drops to zero – even without condoms. The PARTNER study reported no transmission with an undetectable viral load. this was after about 900 couple had sex 58,000 without condoms (over several years).
Note: This answer was updated in January 2018 and October 2014 from a question from June 2011. i-Base no longer answers individual questions about HIV transmission and risk. (See: Question 1, 5, 6 and 9 at this link).
Hi Yvonne – how is your partner coping? He actually has HIV and so this must be difficult for him. Your negative results are good news but you need to have a second test in a few months to confirm this. Even though you have not been using condoms, HIV is still a difficult virus to catch. Now you both know your status, you can be careful to use condoms in the future.
I’ve been dating my partner for 6 months having unprotected sex and we just got tested I tested negative while he tested positive. we still waiting for lab results on him to confirm other things. am so scared and don’t know how long will I soon be infected from now onwards.
Hi Patrick, there are no tests to show which way transmission occurred. Now that you both know you are positive it is better to think about how to make the best future – including using treatment. One person has to have HIV to pass it to another person. Sometime people test HIV negative though when they have recently caught HIV.
my wife was I’ll and when she went to the hospital she was tested HIV positive after six month I also tested positive so my question is can I infect her while I test negative?
If you are not sure about HIV and risk, take time to read about this FAQ page and guide for your future health.
https://i-base.info/qa/factsheets/hiv-transmission-and-testing
and
http://i-base.info/guides/testing
if the person jus push in n didn’t come in you could u get hiv?
Hi Francis, there are two things here.
Firstly, the HIV status on the baby depends on what type of test they used. If this was a routine HIV test (called an “HIV antibody test”), then this just show the mother antibodies – ie the baby might not have HIV. If this was a viral load or PCR test, then the baby doesn’t have HIV. Either way, so long as your wife is now on treatment, it is okay to breastfeed.
Secondly, your negative test results show you are negative. If your wife is now on treatment with an undetectable viral load result, then the risk to you in the future is close to zero:
https://i-base.info/qa-on-the-partner-study
I normally go for HIV test every 3 months, each time I got tested I’m always negative, but last year august 2015, my wife went for antenatal and was tested and found positive to HIV, I still went to the clinic and got tested, I was negative, my last test was 1st of July 2016, still negative, do I have anything to fear, considering my unprotected sex with her is over a year, the worst is that the child she gave birth to is HIV positive although, he is on drugs and she is breast feeding him, I don’t know if by the time the baby stops breast feeding he will become negative
Hi Joseph
HIV is a difficult virus to catch, so the chance of you becoming positive is likely to be much lower than 1% – ie there is a more than 99% chance that you didn’t catch HIV, even though your partner was positive.
Information about HIV transmission and testing are already online at the FAQ page.
https://i-base.info/qa/factsheets/hiv-transmission-and-testing
or in this guide:
http://i-base.info/guides/testing
It is almost a month a go when i did unprotected sex, a woman, but few we visited hospital for VCT, she was tested positive & I was tested Negative, now am so depressed scared, I’ve I got contaminated or not, help me please.