HIV Viral Load
If we run the test and find a patient with a detectable viral load, we know something is wrong. It can mean one of two things: either the patient is not taking their drugs, or there is drug resistance, which means the medicines are not working - Médecins Sans Frontières physician
HWN Suggests
The need for routine viral load testing
Greatly expanded access to routine viral load testing will be a game-changer in the global response to AIDS. Routine viral load tests improve treatment quality and individual health outcomes for people living with HIV, contribute to prevention, and potentially reduce resource needs for costly second- and third-line HIV medicines...
Viral load testing is already the standard of care for people living with HIV in wealthy countries. Greater political will and funding are needed to scale up capacity in low- and middle-income countries.
Articles of Interest
Fact Sheet: Undetectable Viral Load
Undetectable = Untransmittable. People who are undetectable do not transmit HIV to other people through sex. That is the meaning of “undetectable = untransmittable” or “U=U”, a message started by Prevention Access Campaign about what it means to be undetectable. If you have been taking HIV medications for at least six months, have a consistently suppressed viral load (less than 200 copies/mL), and continue taking your HIV medications as directed, you will not transmit HIV to others.
HIV viral load testing
A viral load test measures the amount of HIV in your blood. A sample of blood is sent to a laboratory, where the number of copies of a specific part of the virus called RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is measured. A viral load test result is given as the number of copies per millilitre (ml) of blood. The lower the number, the less virus there is in the blood. Numbers can range from over 1,000,000 copies/ml to undetectable.
Point‐of‐care viral load tests to detect high HIV viral load in people living with HIV/AIDS attending health facilities
We found POC VL to have high sensitivity and high specificity for the diagnosis of high HIV viral load in PLHIV attending healthcare facilities at a clinical threshold of ≥ 1000 copies/mL.
Undetectable
What is an undetectable viral load? When your viral load is so low that blood tests can’t measure it. This is a really good thing! It means your HIV treatment is stopping HIV from making copies of itself and spreading in your body. And it means you can’t pass on HIV!
Undetectable
What is an undetectable viral load? When your viral load is so low that blood tests can’t measure it. This is a really good thing! It means your HIV treatment is stopping HIV from making copies of itself and spreading in your body. And it means you can’t pass on HIV!
What is the viral load?
Not only is it important to be aware of the status of your immune system via the CD4 cell counts... but also the quantity of HIV virus that is present in your body.
Women and Viral Load
In addition to being good for your health, having an undetectable viral load (which, in the case of U=U, means below 200 copies) while on HIV treatment reduces your chance of passing HIV to sexual partners to zero. Recent studies have looked at couples in which one partner is HIV-negative and the other partner is living with HIV and has an undetectable viral load while on HIV treatment. When researchers followed these couples over time, they found that none of the HIV-negative participants acquired HIV through sexual relations with their partners.
