POZ Community Forums
HIV Prevention and Testing => Do I Have HIV? => Topic started by: Screwedrightup on November 27, 2012, 07:20:19 am
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My question is, how soon will a person develop it from the day of contact before they can pass it on? Someone I know is in a pickle and I cannot find the answer anywhere. His friend used a needle that was also used by someone that has aids, one week ago she did this. The other night they had sex. Today he finds all this out.She hasn't been tested yet and doesn't know if she has it and it was supposedly boiled and bleached needle which is rhetorical, but according to this story the question is the first paragraph.
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Screwed,
A newly infected person will be infectious within a matter of days, and within a week to ten days that person will usually be at the most infectious they'll ever be during the course of their illness.
If the woman in question did bleach the needle before use, then she didn't have a risk. She only would have had a risk if she used the needle immediately after the hiv positive person. Either way, she was at a much higher risk for hep C than hiv through sharing needles.
And before you ask, hep C is rarely transmitted sexually and usually only during intense sex acts that draw blood from both partners.
Your friend needs stop having unprotected intercourse with people. He should be assuming ANYONE he has anal or vaginal intercourse with is hiv positive and protect himself accordingly by using condoms.
If he didn't use a condom (it's not clear from your post), the earliest he should test is at six weeks. The vast majority of people who have actually been infected will seroconvert and test positive by six weeks, with the average time to seroconversion being only 22 days.
A six week negative must be confirmed at the three month point, but is highly unlikely to change.
If your friend used a condom for anal or vaginal intercourse, then he hasn't had a risk and does not need to test for hiv over this specific incident. Condoms have been proven to prevent hiv infection. There have been three long-term studies of couples where one is positive and one is negative. In the couples who used condoms for anal or vaginal intercourse, but no barrier for oral activities, not one of the negative partners became infected with hiv. Not one.
Here's what you need to know in order to avoid hiv infection:
You need to be using condoms for anal or vaginal intercourse, every time, no exceptions until such time as you are in a securely monogamous relationship where you have both tested for ALL sexually transmitted infections together.
To agree to have unprotected intercourse is to consent to the possibility of being infected with an STI. Sex without a condom lasts only a matter of minutes, but hiv is forever.
Have a look through the condom and lube links in my signature line so you can use condoms with confidence.
Anyone who is sexually active should be having a full sexual health care check-up, including but not limited to hiv testing, at least once a year and more often if unprotected intercourse occurs.
If you aren't already having regular, routine check-ups, now is the time to start. As long as you make sure condoms are being used for intercourse, you can fully expect your routine hiv tests to return with negative results.
Don't forget to always get checked for all the other sexually transmitted infections as well, because they are MUCH easier to transmit than hiv. Some of the other STIs can be present with no obvious symptoms, so the only way to know for sure is to test.
Use condoms for anal or vaginal intercourse, correctly and consistently, and you will avoid hiv infection. It really is that simple!
Ann