U=U Gains Traction in Nigeria

[W]hile ART has been around for decades, these antiviral drugs have become far more effective, Dr. Greene says. Not only can they allow someone who is HIV positive to live a normal, symptom-free life for decades, but they can also eliminate the risk that an HIV-positive individual will transmit the virus to a partner or offspring, he says.

“These studies followed couples for years and found no incidence of transmission,” Dr. Greene says. He points out that, just last year, the CDC backed both these findings and the U=U campaign. “We used to have these stigmas about what it means to have HIV in the body, and all that’s changing,” he says.

“He mentions the U=U campaign, which stands for “undetectable equals untransmissible.” During the past decade, three landmark studies have shown that HIV-positive individuals on ART who have an “undetectable viral load” cannot transmit the virus to a partner.”

Read more in Nigeria’s new media network pulse.ng.