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Sex With an Undetectable Viral Load with HIV, Explained
HIV Internist Stella Safo, MD, explains how antiretroviral therapy has made sex with HIV safer as long as you keep your viral load low.
Written by Lauren Smith, MA | Reviewed by Mera Goodman, MD, FAAP
Updated on July 30, 2023Living with HIV has changed a lot over the past couple of decades. This is especially true when it comes to guidelines for having sex with HIV.
Thanks to today’s HIV treatments, many people now have viral loads that are “undetectable.” This means there is so little HIV in the blood that standard blood tests don’t pick it up. Undetectable viral loads are also untransmissable — meaning you’re unlikely to transmit HIV to your partner during sex.
Additional Medical Contributors
- Stella Safo, MD, MPHStella A. Safo, MD, MPH, is an HIV primary care physician and assistant professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023). HIV: Protecting others.
HIV.gov. (2022). How is HIV transmitted?
View All References (1)
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (2020). 10 things to know about HIV suppression.
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