Main page
News
Main content

Yes, as an HIV-infected person, I was infected with HIV again

April 25, 2025 895hotness 0likes 0comments

Reinfection occurs when an HIV-positive person becomes infected with a second strain of HIV.

This is sometimes called a superinfection .

Although this risk is low, it could compromise antiretroviral therapy (ART) if the second infection is resistant to HIV drugs.

It is not clear how often reinfection occurs, but it is helpful to consider the two issues separately .

Youai Self-Test，，，

HIV infection probability self-test

Mini Programs

One is the risk of multiple different infections. All HIV-positive people already have multiple HIV types in their bodies, and because HIV makes mistakes when replicating, the longer the infection is and the more mutations there are, but these differences are small. Most studies believe that the risk of reinfection is similar to that of initial HIV infection, and viral load is probably the most important factor, with the risk greatest when the viral load is very high.

The second is the risk that one of these strains has resistance to a different drug. This is rarer but depends on the rate of drug resistance in the country. For example, in some countries, 10% (1 in 10) of people infected have drug resistance. The main risk of drug resistance is that it may make ART ineffective.

Initially, reinfection was thought to be a risk only in the early stages of infection, but cases have also occurred during chronic infection, including reinfection of people on ART with drug-resistant HIV. Drug-resistant HIV may also reduce the effectiveness of preventive medications (PrEP and PEP).

If two people are likely to have been infected with the same HIV strain, there is no risk of reinfection. Ideally, both partners would be on ART and have undetectable viral loads. However, if one partner develops drug resistance due to poor adherence, theoretically their partner could be reinfected with drug-resistant HIV.

Reinfection will not occur if the partner has an undetectable viral load. As with other HIV transmission situations, risk is related to viral load, and U=U (undetectable viral load equals uninfectious) means that sexual transmission of HIV will not occur when the viral load is undetectable.

This is a good reason to take care of your own and your partner's health and maintain good medication compliance.

Tag： Nothing