​How Do You Get HIV ​

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• Person can only get HIV by coming into contact with specific bodily fluids of someone living with the virus (e.g. blood, semen, breastmilk).

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• HIV can be transmitted during unprotected sex; through sharing injecting equipment; from mother-to-baby during pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding; and through contaminated blood transfusions.

 

• Using condoms during sex, or taking PrEP consistently will protect you from HIV infection through sex.

 

• Taking HIV treatment if you are a new or expectant mother, and avoiding shared injecting equipment if you use drugs, will also protect you and those around you from HIV.

 

• Effective treatment can lower the viral load of someone living with HIV to such low levels that they are undetectable in a blood test. This means that they cannot pass on HIV.

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HIV is found in the following bodily fluids of someone living with the virus:

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• blood

• semen and pre-seminal fluid ('pre-cum')

• rectal fluids/anal mucous

• vaginal fluids

• breastmilk.

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For person to get HIV, these bodily fluids need to get into blood through a mucous membrane (for example, the lining of the vagina, rectum, or the opening of the penis), via shared injecting equipment, or through broken skin (such as cuts or sores in the mouth or tears around the anus).

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There is not enough HIV virus in other bodily fluids, like saliva, sweat or urine, to transmit it from one person to another.

Someone living with HIV who has an ‘undetectable’ viral load, meaning effective treatment has lowered the amount of virus in their blood to levels where it cannot be detected by a normal blood test, cannot pass on HIV.

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A person living with HIV with a detectable viral load can pass the virus to others whether they have symptoms or not.

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The main ways you can get HIV are:

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Sex without a condom

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• having unprotected sex (meaning sex without a condom) with someone who has HIV, particularly unprotected vaginal sex and anal sex.

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Sharing injecting equipment

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• sharing needles, syringes or other equipment used to prepare and inject drugs with someone who has HIV.

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Passed from mother-to-baby during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding

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• a mother infected with HIV can pass the virus to her baby via her blood during pregnancy and birth, and through her breast milk when breastfeeding.

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Contaminated blood transfusions and organ/tissue transplants

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• receiving blood transfusions, blood products, or organ/tissue transplants that are contaminated with HIV. This risk is extremely small because most countries test blood products for HIV first.

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If you think you have been exposed to HIV, the only way to find out if you have HIV is to have an HIV test.