What is the highest-risk behavior for HIV infection?
Anal sex is the highest-risk behavior. Fortunately, there are more HIV prevention tools available today than ever before.
Why get and stay on HIV treatment?
Getting and staying on HIV treatment because it reduces the amount of HIV in your blood (also called the viral load) to a very low level. This keeps you healthy and prevents illness.
What is HIV treatment?
What is HIV treatment? HIV treatment involves taking medicine that reduces the amount of HIV in your body. HIV medicine is called antiretroviral therapy (ART). There is no effective cure for HIV.
Who is most likely to be affected by HIV?
In the United States, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men are the population most affected by HIV. According to CDC, in 2018, gay and bisexual men accounted for 69% of new HIV diagnoses. By race/ethnicity, Blacks/African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos are disproportionately affected by HIV compared to other racial and ethnic groups.
What is HIV treatment?
HIV treatment (antiretroviral therapy or ART) involves taking medicine as prescribed by a health care provider. HIV treatment reduces the amount of...
When should I start HIV treatment?
Start HIV treatment as soon as possible after diagnosis. All people with HIV should take HIV treatment, no matter how long they’ve had HIV or how h...
What if I delay HIV treatment?
If you delay treatment, HIV will continue to harm your immune system. Delaying treatment will put you at higher risk for transmitting HIV to your p...
Are there different types of HIV treatment?
There are two types of HIV treatment: pills and shots. Pills are recommended for people who are just starting HIV treatment. There are many FDA-app...
What are HIV treatment shots?
HIV treatment shots are long-acting injections used to treat people with HIV. The shots are given by your health care provider and require routine...
Can I switch my HIV treatment from pills to shots?
Talk to your health care provider about changing your HIV treatment plan. Shots may be right for you if you are an adult with HIV who has an undete...
What are the benefits of taking my HIV treatment as prescribed?
HIV treatment reduces the amount of HIV in the blood (viral load). Taking your HIV medicine as prescribed will help keep your viral load low. HIV t...
Does HIV treatment cause side effects?
HIV treatment can cause side effects in some people. However, not everyone experiences side effects. The most common side effects are Nausea and vo...
What should I do if I’m thinking about having a baby?
Let your health care provider know if you or your partner is pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant. They will determine the right type of HIV...
Can I take birth control while on HIV treatment?
You can use any method of birth control to prevent pregnancy. However, some HIV treatment may make hormone-based birth control less effective. Talk...
What is the amount of HIV in the blood called?
The amount of HIV in the blood is called viral load . Taking your HIV medicine as prescribed will help keep your viral load low and your CD4 cell count high. HIV medicine can make the viral load very low (called viral suppression ). Viral suppression is defined as having less than 200 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood.
How does treatment help prevent HIV?
Having an undetectable viral load may also help prevent transmission from injection drug use.
What does it mean when your HIV is suppressed?
Viral suppression is defined as having less than 200 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood. HIV medicine can make the viral load so low that a test can’t detect it (called an undetectable viral load ). If your viral load goes down after starting HIV treatment, that means treatment is working.
What does it mean when your viral load goes down after HIV treatment?
If your viral load goes down after starting HIV treatment, that means treatment is working. Continue to take your medicine as prescribed.
How long does it take for a mother to give her baby HIV?
If a mother with HIV takes HIV medicine as prescribed throughout pregnancy, labor, and delivery and gives HIV medicine to her baby for 4 to 6 weeks after birth, the risk of transmitting HIV to her baby can be 1% or less.
Why is it important to take HIV medication?
Taking HIV medication consistently, as prescribed, helps prevent drug resistance. Drug resistance develops when people with HIV are inconsistent with taking their HIV medication as prescribed. The virus can change (mutate) and will no longer respond to certain HIV medication. If you develop drug resistance, it will limit your options ...
How long does it take to get rid of HIV?
There is no effective cure for HIV. But with proper medical care, you can control HIV. Most people can get the virus under control within six months. Taking HIV medicine does not prevent transmission ...
What Is HIV Treatment?
HIV treatment involves taking medicines that slow the progression of the virus in your body. HIV is a type of virus called a retrovirus, and the combination of drugs used to treat it is called antiretroviral therapy (ART). ART is recommended for all people living with HIV, regardless of how long they’ve had the virus or how healthy they are. ART must be taken every day, exactly as your health care provider prescribes.
Why Is HIV Treatment Important?
Getting and staying on HIV treatment because it reduces the amount of HIV in your blood (also called the viral load) to a very low level. This keeps you healthy and prevents illness. There is also a major prevention benefit. People living with HIV who take HIV medication daily as prescribed and get and keep an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting HIV to their HIV-negative partners. This is called treatment as prevention.
What Is HIV Drug Resistance?
Drug resistance can be a cause of treatment failure for people living with HIV. As HIV multiplies in the body, it sometimes mutates (changes form) and produces variations of itself. Variations of HIV that develop while a person is taking ART can lead to drug-resistant strains of HIV.
What is drug resistance testing?
Drug-resistance testing identifies which, if any, HIV medicines won’t be effective against your specific strain of HIV. Drug-resistance testing results help determine which HIV medicines to include in an HIV treatment regimen. Taking HIV medication every day, exactly as prescribed helps prevent drug resistance.
What happens if you have a low CD4 count?
If your CD4 cell count falls below a certain level, you are at risk of getting an opportunistic infection. These are infections that don’t normally affect people with healthy immune systems but that can infect people with immune systems weakened by HIV infection. Your health care provider may prescribe medicines to prevent certain infections.
Why do you prescribe HIV?
Your health care provider may prescribe medicines to prevent certain infections. HIV treatment is most likely to be successful when you know what to expect and are committed to taking your medicines exactly as prescribed.
How soon can you start ART for HIV?
Treatment guidelines from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommend that a person living with HIV begin ART as soon as possible after diagnosis. Starting ART slows the progression of HIV and can keep you healthy for many years.
What Should I Do If I Think I’m At Risk for HIV?
If you think you’re at risk for getting HIV, or that you might already have HIV, get tested and learn about the effective HIV prevention and treatment options available today.
What does knowing your HIV status do?
Knowing your HIV status gives you powerful information to help you take steps to keep you and your partner (s) healthy:
What is PREP in HIV?
These include using condoms correctly, every time you have sex; pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a prevention method in which the HIV-negative partner takes daily HIV medicine to prevent HIV; and treatment as prevention, a method in which the HIV-positive partner takes daily HIV medicine to achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load.
What happens if you live in a community with HIV?
Communities. When you live in a community where many people have HIV infection, the chance of being exposed to HIV by having sex or sharing needles or other injection equipment with someone who has HIV is higher.
Is HIV risk different for different groups?
Is the Risk of HIV Different for Different Groups? HIV can affect anyone regardless of sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, gender, age, or where they live. However, certain groups of people in the United States are more likely to get HIV than others because of particular factors, including the communities in which they live, ...
Can HIV be transmitted through sex?
If a person with HIV takes HIV treatment every day exactly as prescribed and gets and keeps an undetectable viral load, they have effectively no risk of transmitting HIV to their partners through sex. Visit our U.S. Statistics page for more information on how HIV affects different populations.
What steps can a person take to prevent high cholesterol?
People can take these steps to prevent high cholesterol or lower cholesterol levels .
What are risk factors for high cholesterol?
The most common causes of high cholesterol are unhealthy lifestyle habits, including the following:
What is high cholesterol?
High cholesterol (also called hyperlipidemia) refers to high levels of cholesterol in the blood. Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance made by the body. Cholesterol is also found in foods from animal sources, including egg yolks, meat, and cheese.
What is the best medicine for high cholesterol?
Sometimes cholesterol-lowering medicine is also needed. The most common medicines used to reduce cholesterol levels are called statins . In people with HIV, treatment for high cholesterol may include changing an HIV regimen to avoid taking HIV medicines that can increase cholesterol levels.
Does high cholesterol show symptoms?
Usually, high cholesterol has no symptoms. A blood test is used to measure cholesterol levels.
Can HIV medications lower cholesterol?
Some HIV medicines can interact with medicines that lower cholesterol levels. Health care providers carefully consider potential drug interactions between HIV medicines and any other medicines a person may be taking.
What age is the most likely to get HIV?
In particular, younger men are more susceptible. If fact, nearly two-thirds of all new HIV diagnoses among MSM are between the ages of 13 and 34.
How many transgender women have HIV?
The vast majority—84%—were transgender women, and an estimated 14% of transgender women have HIV. Due to the stigma trans people regularly face, they tend to have poorer access to health care and health education, two things that greatly impact HIV status. Further, “trans women are more likely to have sex with a population where ...
Do trans women get HIV?
Halkitis notes that the majority of trans women who get HIV are also black, “so there’s the racism factor at play here, too.” As experienced similarly by other groups of color, racial discrimination impacts everything from access to quality health care to incarceration rates, both of which can be a barrier to HIV prevention education, according to the CDC.
Is there a health disparity between the LGBTQ community and the white community?
In the United States, it’s a sad reality that there are drastic health disparities between various subsets of the population. People of color and certain members of the LGBTQ community, for example, often experience poorer mental and physical health outcomes than their white and straight peers. These groups, as well as a few others, also have a significantly higher risk of contracting Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
Can anyone contract HIV?
While anyone is capable of contracting HIV, there are certain communities—notably young men of color who have sex with other men, black women, and transgender women—who are disproportionately affected by the virus. Luckily, there are tools to help everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, age, race, or gender, protect themselves from the virus.