HIV Treatment

The findings of HPTN 052 suggest that, if a sufficiently large proportion of the HIV-positive population was taking effective HIV treatment and their viral loads were brought down to an undetectable level, transmission might become rare enough for the epidemic to be ended. The possibility that, alongside condom use and other safer sex practices, in certain situations people with an undetectable viral load could consider adherence to HIV treatment to be a method of preventing onward transmission of HIV. For discordant couples thinking about pregnancy. The reduced risk of transmission may mean couples feel able to have unprotected sex in order to conceive.

There are some programmes already under way taking this approach to HIV prevention (in San Francisco and British Columbia, for example, where people are encouraged to start HIV treatment at the time they are diagnosed, regardless of their CD4 cell count).