HIV Viral Load and Transmissibility of HIV Infection

In 2016, the Prevention Access Campaign, a health equity initiative with the goal of ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic as well as HIV-related stigma, launched the Undetectable = Untransmittable (U = U) initiative.

U = U signifies that individuals with HIV who receive antiretroviral therapy (ART) and have achieved and maintained an undetectable viral load cannot sexually transmit the virus to others.

This concept, based on strong scientific evidence, has broad implications for treatment of HIV infection from a scientific and public health standpoint, for the self-esteem of individuals by reducing the stigma associated with HIV, and for certain legal aspects of HIV criminalization.

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention state ‘People who take ART daily as prescribed and achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to an HIV-negative partner’. (Sep 2017)

See link https://www.preventionaccess.org/