Question
What is the risk of infecting my girlfriend with HIV?
14 January 2010. Related: All topics, HIV transmission.
Hi! thank you for your work.
I tested HIV-positive in 2004 and have not had any sexual intercourse for about eight years. Yet recently I have sex with a condom with my girlfriend. Unfortunately we are not always using a condom though.
How much does this practice (unsafe sex) hurt both of us. I know she was not tested and I guess she might not have been infected before she met me. I mean I probably passed the virus to her.
I am not on medicines, yet i feel healthy over these past years.
Answer
Hi
Thank you for your question and for allowing us to answer it online.
I don’t know the details about you and your partners history, but having penetrative sex without using a condom will always carry a risk to a partner if they are HIV negative. This is especially the case if the HIV-positive partner is not on treatment, because without treatment, viral load in genital fluids is nearly always at levels that are high enough to be infectious.
This doesn’t mean that your partner is HIV-positive now.
It also doesn’t mean you caused her infection unless she has never had any other risks with previous partners, although that is possibile.
Does your partner know you are HIV-positive? I assume from your question that she does.
If so, then is should be easy to suggest that she has an HIV test now. If the test result is negative, then you are both lucky and using condoms every time from now on will help ensure that your girlfriend stays HIV-negative. If the test result is positive, then your girlfriend needs to know this result for her own health care.
Different people respond to HIV differently. One person can have a strong immune response and not need treatment for many years, while another may become ill much more quickly and need treatment earlier, even if they both have the same type of HIV.
Some couples where both partners are HIV-positive decide to not use condoms. Others prefer to continue using condoms to protect against other sexual infections.
Whatever situation you are in, it sounds important for your girlfriend to have an HIV test.
If your girlfriend does not know you are HIV-positive, then it is important to use condoms every time you have sex. You should also think about how to talk to your partner about HIV. In some countries, not telling a partner about your HIV-positive status is a criminal offence. In some countries it is an offence even if you use condoms every time, because in those countries the courts have decided that an HIV-negative person should have the right to this information, in order to decide their own level of risk.
Information on HIV transmission and testing.