Question
Am I protected if my boyfriend’s viral load is 500?
10 April 2024. Related: All topics, HIV transmission, Pregnancy, Sero different couples.
I and my boyfriend are intimate but he just now told me that he has HIV and the viral load is 500.
I truly love him but I don’t know otherwise and is there any risks of transferring the infection to me?
What about child bearing👌
Answer
Hi there
Thanks for your question which covers several different topics.
Firstly though, how are you doing if you weren’t expecting this news?
It is also really good that you are talking about this with your boyfriend. There is still often so much stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV that makes it difficult for people to talk about HIV.
This shows that your boyfriend takes your relationship seriously – because he trusts you with this information when most people get rejected if they mention HIV.
So long as viral load in undetectable in the person taking HIV treatment, this also protects their partners, even if you are not using condoms. Many countries define undetectable as being less than 200 copies/mL but the risk of transmission is still likely to be zero for heterosexual sex when viral load is less than 1000 copies/mL.
Countries that use WHO guidelines, including South Africa, define viral load that is between 200 and 1000 as being a special category. This is because viral load only stays in the range for a short time. If it later drops to less than 200, the risk remains at zero. If viral load goes higher though, the risk of transmission also increases. This often involves changing to a new HIV combination.
It sounds like so far you have not been at any risk, but checking the viral load again now is important to be able to know any future risk.
Having an undetectable viral load also makes it easy to have children, without either the partner or the baby becoming HIV positive.
Please see questions 2, 5, 6, and 9 at this link for more information.
https://i-base.info/qa/most-asked-questions
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