AIDS HIV Prevention

The HIV test is simple. Home tests are available. You can also get tested at labs that keep your identity secret. You can also get tested by your doctor, and at your public health department. If you are doing a home test, or if you order a test from a lab, a positive result means you should see a doctor to confirm that you're really infected.

If you know you are at high risk of HIV infection and come down with a bad case of the flu, see a doctor right away. It could be the early signs of HIV infection. Tell your doctor about your risk behavior. There are very sensitive tests that can tell if you've got HIV - and treatment during this very early stage of infection works best.

Before getting tested, think about what your test result will mean. Most people need help with this, so see a counselor, psychologist, or doctor for advice - or call your local AIDS hotline. Prepare for your result.

If you test negative, you may want to talk about how to reduce your future risk. There are many private AIDS organizations that can give you this kind of help. Usually these organizations have "been-there, done-that" counselors you can relate to.

If you test positive, you'll need help deciding what to do. HIV infection isn't a death sentence. It does mean that you will need to take special care of your health. It also means that you will have to take special care not to infect anybody else with the AIDS virus.

If you test positive for HIV, you must have medical care. If you don't have a doctor, a local AIDS organization or AIDS hotline can help you find one. Get some help from a person you trust. If you don't have a person like this in your life, get help from a professional counselor. Have this person go with you to the doctor.

If you test positive, you have to tell your sex and/or needle-sharing partners that they, too, need to be tested. But you don't have to tell everybody else. Tell only those people who can support you. If you have children, talk with a counselor about what to tell them, and when.

What Are the Treatments?

Treatment with combinations of AIDS drugs can keep people with HIV from getting AIDS.

In clinical studies, where everybody gets state-of-the art treatment and very regular medical exams, the drugs work for the vast majority of people. In the real world, some AIDS doctors say, the drugs fail in about half of their patients.

Why? Not all AIDS drugs work for all people. It's absolutely essential to take the drugs at the right time of day, every single day. Sometimes the drugs' side effects - or simple human nature - make this very hard to do. And because HIV is constantly mutating, no two people are infected with exactly the same virus.

Treatment must be planned and adjusted for every individual person with HIV. When to start treatment is a big question. Everybody agrees that starting aggressive treatment in the early days after infection - the stage of acute HIV infection - is most effective. But most people don't find out they have HIV until the stage of chronic HIV infection, when the virus has a firm hold on the body. There's no hard and fast rule about when to start treatment for such patients.