Introduction
HIV prevention includes extra than simply obeying the rules. You will need to pay attention to the dangers and comprehend the transmission and non-transmission of HIV or AIDS. It’s essential to go the additional mile and educate your self on cutting-edge and time-tested HIV prevention methods.
Figuring out oneself is a very powerful facet. Everybody is exclusive ultimately. Some persons are extra susceptible to an infection than others. Just a few might have particular aims, equivalent to starting a household or changing into pregnant, which name for distinctive issues and embrace varied dangers.
So as to shield your self, you have to be trustworthy with your self about your private danger elements and create a novel prevention plan to cut back the dangers.
On this weblog, we’ll take a look at eight methods you should utilize to develop your private HIV prevention plan.
Know the dangers
Figuring out the reality concerning the many mechanisms of transmission and the behaviours that put you personally in danger will make it easier to stop HIV or AIDS.
Starting with the basics:
- Intimate contact with semen, pre-ejaculate fluid (pre-cum), blood, vaginal fluid, rectal fluid, and breast milk can switch HIV.
- Shared needles, anal intercourse, and vaginal intercourse are the principle ways in which HIV is transmitted.
- HIV can be transmitted from mom to child by means of breastfeeding or occupational publicity (equivalent to a needlestick damage).
- HIV can’t be transmitted by contact, kissing, mosquito bites, sharing utensils, utilizing the lavatory or ingesting fountain, spitting, or touching bodily fluids.
Take the PrEP
A day by day dose of HIV medicine, often called antiretrovirals, can decrease your danger of contracting HIV by as a lot as 99% when used as a part of the HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) strategy.
A newer PrEP various that doesn’t require taking day by day medicine is known as Apretude. The possibilities of an infection is considerably decreased when the uninfected partner receives an injection each two months.
All sexually energetic adults and adolescents must be knowledgeable about PrEP, in response to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC).
PrEP is suggested for anybody who’s extra more likely to be identified with HIV, together with these in serodiscordant relationships (intimate {couples} during which one companion is HIV-positive and one other is HIV-negative) with companions whose viral masses are detectable or unknown, those that have had a number of sexual companions whose HIV standing is unknown, and those that have not too long ago skilled a bacterial sexually transmitted an infection (STI).
In different phrases, anybody liable to HIV can decrease their probability of an infection utilizing PrEP.
Keep away from sharing needles
Individuals who inject medicine (PWIDs) have a excessive HIV prevalence price. In response to research, sharing needles or syringes might have contributed to the an infection of 20% to 40% of PWIDs.
Moreover, not simply PWIDSs are in danger. Moreover, their sexual companions might be at risk, particularly if they aren’t conscious of their companion’s drug utilization.
To cease the unfold of HIV or AIDS and different bloodborne sicknesses (like hepatitis C), many jurisdictions supply free, government-sponsored needle trade programmes. It has been demonstrated that clear needle programmes considerably decrease the incidence of HIV amongst PWIDs by decreasing the probability of needle sharing.
Use condoms
There isn’t any justification for being careless with condom use. The simplest technique of stopping being pregnant, HIV, and different sexually transmitted ailments (STDs) continues to be celibacy and inside and exterior condoms. No different preventive measures can accomplish all three directly.
STDs can elevate the chance of HIV as a result of their skill to compromise delicate vaginal or anal tissues. This is applicable to all STDs that induce vaginal irritation, not simply these like syphilis that end in open sores.
Conceive safely
In over half of all HIV-positive {couples}, one companion is HIV-positive whereas the opposite is HIV-negative.
With enhancements in HIV remedy, serodiscordant {couples} now have a greater probability than ever to get pregnant, allowing being pregnant whereas decreasing the hazard of transmission to a companion with out HIV.
In actual fact, safety towards transmission in serodiscordant relationships must be virtually assured by means of PrEP at the side of a viral load that’s undetectable.
Keep away from mother-to-child transmission
All phases of being pregnant are concerned in stopping mother-to-child HIV transmission. Mom-to-child transmission is uncommon since it’s routinely screened for throughout being pregnant. Nevertheless, it continues to occur.
Early initiation of antiretroviral medicine for the mom reduces the chance of transmission to just about zero. The chance continues to be lower than 2% general, even when medicine is initiated later within the being pregnant.
Nursing must also be prevented since breast milk can include HIV.
Cease HIV an infection after publicity
You may probably keep away from getting HIV by taking a 28-day course of HIV medicines if you happen to suppose you will have been uncovered to it, both by means of unsafe intercourse or different high-risk actions.
The method, known as post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), is simplest when it’s carried out shortly after virus publicity. In response to research, beginning PEP inside 72 hours can lower the prospect of contracting HIV by as a lot as 81%. The earlier you start remedy, the higher would be the outcomes.
Get and keep undetectable
In response to the evidence-based idea of Undetectable=Untransmissible (U=U), people with an undetectable viral load can’t transmit the virus to others.
A viral load is a measurement of how a lot virus is current in a blood pattern. Undetectable is outlined as having fewer than 200 copies of HIV per millilitre of blood, which signifies that no virus was discovered within the blood pattern.
You can’t transmit the virus to others if you happen to attain and keep an undetectable viral load, in response to information from the PARTNER1 and PARTNER2 investigations, which have been carried out from 2010 to 2018.
Additionally learn: HIV Test 1 & 2 Antibodies
Last ideas
Right now, there are numerous methods to keep away from HIV. Utilizing a number of of those above-mentioned recommendations could also be advantageous for you, relying in your specific danger elements.
One other essential key’s schooling. The extra you already know about HIV-AIDS, the extra you get to know concerning the prophylactic measures to guard your self on time.
Regularly requested questions (FAQs)
Q1. How did AIDS begin?
Ans.
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is likely handed to human beings when people hunted chimpanzees for meat and got here involved with their contaminated blood and therefore unfold to folks all all over the world as time goes on.
Q2. What are the three levels of HIV an infection?
Ans.
With out well timed prognosis and remedy, HIV-AIDS advances into three levels together with acute HIV an infection, persistent HIV an infection, and AIDS.
Q3. Can an individual survive AIDS?
Ans.
Though there isn’t a treatment for HIV an infection, there are a number of efficient therapies that enable most individuals with the an infection to dwell wholesome and longer life.
Written by: Anjali Dharra
