Hi there<\/p>\n
I am very sorry that your clinic is closed. This has happened to clinics in lots of countries after the block in US aid.<\/p>\n
Lots of people are working hard to open the previous services again. Until this happens are there any other clinics that still provide free ARVs?<\/p>\n
You ask about risks to yourself, and also to your partner. Is your partner HIV negative?<\/p>\n
Your risk depends on your HIV history.<\/p>\n
If you were diagnosed with a high CD4 count (above 350) and have never been ill, then being off-ART might not cause any short-term problem. You might easily go for several months or perhaps much longer without becoming ill.<\/p>\n
If your CD4 count ever wen below 200 though or if you were ever seriously ill, then it is more urgent for you to start ARVs again.<\/p>\n
It is also important that you ask about the risk to your partner if they are HIV negative.<\/p>\n
After stopping ART it usually takes at least a week before viral load becomes detectable. even it this takes a couple of weeks, it is best to assume a week.<\/p>\n
After stopping ART please use condoms if your partner is HIV negative.<\/p>\n
Then over the next 2 to 12 weeks, viral load can become incredibly high. In some people this can be more than 100,000 copies\/mL, or more than 1,000,000 copies\/mL.<\/p>\n
Unless you are using condoms or your partner is using PrEP this will be a VERY high risk of transmitting HIV.<\/p>\n
Although the times will vary for different people, without a recent viral load test it is impossible to talk about individual risks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi, my HIV clinic closed and I can’t afford ARVs as they are no longer free. What is my risk if I stay off ART. will my partner be at risk?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,23,36,49,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access-to-treatment","category-all-topics","category-hiv-transmission","category-sero-different-couples","category-south-africa","category-stopping-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26095"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26110,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26095\/revisions\/26110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}