Double-bagging?

It's been a while since I posted here. This article interested me and I wanted people to know about the study. I’m from South Africa where just under 20% of the population is living with HIV/Aids. This is all news to me!

Apparently using hormonal contraception (i.e. the pill or Depo injection) are at double the risk of getting infected with HIV. On top of that, HIV-infected women who use hormonal contraception are twice more likely to five their HIV to their uninfected partners.

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). So someone can be infected with the virus, (HIV-positive) and then only later develop AIDS.

This study, run by the University of Washington is probably the first study to the risk to male
partners of HIV-infected woman using contraception, according a prof. of global health at the international clinical research centre. It examined almost 3,800 couples in Africa. Each couple had one partner with HIV infection, and the other without. I’m amazed they could find people willing to participate in this sort of study, never to mind couples who knew that their partner was HIV-positive! Ultimately, the statistics showed that using either the pill or the depo injection doubled an uninfected woman’s chances of becoming infected. The same is true for women who are infected – they are twice as likely to transmit their HIV to their partners.

"Women should be counseled about potentially increased risk of HIV acquisition and transmission with hormonal contraception, particularly injectable methods, and about the importance of dual protection with condoms to decrease HIV risk," said Renee Heffron a key author of the study.

The findings of this study were presenting in July in Rom at the meeting of the International AIDS Society. According to UNAIDS estimats, there are 2.2million people living with HIV/AIDS in Europe.