Question
How long can someone live with HIV?
2 January 2018. Related: All topics, Life expectancy.
How long can a man live with HIV if he was around 18 years old and was healthy when he was infected, both with and without medication?
Answer
Modern HIV drugs mean that life expectancy is now similar for HIV positive people to the general population.
This is based on being diagnosed early and having access to treatment.
The wide range of factors related to life expectancy include: where you live, your income, access to health care, lifestyle (alcohol, drugs, tobacco, exercise and diet) and other infections like hepatitis, genetics and chance – good or bad luck.
Several large studies have been published showing that life expectancy for HIV positive people is very good, and near to an HIV negative person.
Without treatment, HIV will slowly progress in nearly everyone. This speed that HIV progresses varies from a few years to more than 20 years.
Note: this answer was updated in January 2018 from a question posted in August 2008..
Hi
i m suffring from some symptoms of hiv
can we knew dat either we r suffring from hiv o not within two weeks?
Hi Jay, I have created a new page for your question.
Hi, I am jay. My father was infected by HIV2 on march 2004. Since from that time there was no medicine given by the doctors. Because according to them proper time to start medicine has not come & on October 2012 the doctors have started to give medicine. My father CD4 Count is around 450. Some time i am very scare about my father that how long he will be with us.
According to doctor the CD4 count should be good for going healthy life. Please suggest to me for following things.
1. HIV 2 Virus people can live as longs as compared to HIV 1 or More then that.
2. What is the lower count of CD4 for HIV patient to convert in AIDS
3. For living a good & healthy life what should be the minimum count of CD4 Count.
4. According to doctor having medicine will help to control the HIV virus from growing. ( If so then my question is a person having a medicine should not die because of AIDS. )
5. Any expectation of coming some good medicine for HIV in future.
Some question related to me.
1. According to doctors a person having a drugs by needles. Can be infected by HIV virus. Then using a blade for shaving is also dangerous.
2. According to doctor the HIV Virus cannot live in AIR. So my question is a person when take a drug by needle & after taking a drug a person remove a needle from his body and for some time the needle remains in air. So how HIV virus is not died ( Is there any time time line for virus to live in air )
A waiting for your response.
Hi Saqib,
If you send the information to questions@i-base.org.uk I will do my best to answer any questions you have.
My name is Saqib and i am from pakistan. Just a few hours earlier i found that my brother has an HIV infection. His brain is not working properly and i have no idea for how long he has been suffering from it. He is a very religious person and has never been involved in anything negative. I have his reports with me right now. But i don’t know what exactly most of the things mean. Can i email them to you so that you could explain me his current situation and what we can do next ?
Hi Rahul,
Please remember advocates at i-Base are not doctors and we have no formal medical qualifications. Information is intended to support discussions with your doctor and other healthcare professionals. All decisions relating to treatment should be made in discussion with your doctors.
This result means your mother does not have HIV. The number is a more accurate (quantitative) way of measuring the result other than a simple, yes or no. If the number is less than 1.0 the result is negative, if the result is above 1.0 the result is positive, if the result is very close to 1.0 then the doctor may decide a confirmatory test is required. Your mother’s result of 0.03 is a long way from 1.0. So she does not need to worry. She should still use condoms with your father though, to avoid being infected in the future.
Please see this FAQs page about couples where one person is positive and the other is negative.
hello dr.rebecca,as i said earlier,my father is hiv positive,with still good cd4 count of 420,so stil no medication for him,
my family dr. advice my mother for her 2nd time screening test for hiv,
and then we done elisa test,in that her report came as 0.03,and for positive test normal range is approx higher then 1,means dr.rebecca she is non infected na,
please reply me,
and also tel me why that value of 0.03 came,is that viral load,is that happens in all normal individual,if yes,then from where that 0.03 value of viral load came from,
please reply me dr. i am very frighten
Hi Nobile,
I’m very sorry to hear about your recent diagnosis, and how worried you are feeling. Do you have any support to help you deal with this? The Treatment Action Campaign are based in South Africa and may be able to suggest support services in your area if you are interested in this.
It’s good that you have started treatment with aluvia (lopinavir/r) and tencitab (tenofovir+ FTC). These drugs should decrease your viral load, which will make it much less likely that your baby will be infected.
No one can tell you that it is completely safe to use HIV drugs while you are pregnant.At the same time, however, many thousands of women have taken therapy during pregnancy without any complications to their baby. This has resulted in many healthy HIV negative babies.
Please see our pregnancy guide for more information.
Has your boyfriend been tested again since you were diagnosed? It is important that he is tested 3 months after the last time you had unprotected sex as it can take this long for HIV to show up in tests. Please see our testing guide more more info.
Hi I’m Nobile, I’m 26 years old.
I live in SA I’ve been diagnosed with HIV on 3 oct 2012 when I was 24 weeks pregnant, i dont know when i was infected as my boyfriend got tested in may 2012 and he was negative. My CD4 is 413 and im not to sure about my viral load but my doctor said it was low so ive been taking aluvia and tencitab, im scared my child would be infected i took my treatment as prescribed it 2 months now and i dont know if this med will affect my child in any way .
please help im desparate i cant stop thiking of it.
Hi Zakes,
A viral load test can confirm a positive test for somebody who is not yet on HIV treatment. This is because somebody who was not HIV positive would not have any HIV virus in their blood, and therefore would have a viral load of 0.