Question:

Can you tell me what are the chances that a person who had sex with someone with full blown AIDS will get AIDS? Exposure would be more than once and unprotected.

My step-daughter's boyfriend was just diagnosed with full blown AIDS. They have been exclusively dating for over three years -- with the exception of the past 6 months which was infrequent. She has always gotten tested on a yearly basis and is due for her test again.

How long will she have to be tested to know that she is "out of the woods"?

Will she contract HIV first?

Thank you for your help, I have looked the web over for the past several days and can't find the answers I need.

Answer provided by:

Mark H. Katz, M.D.
Regional HIV/AIDS Physician Coordinator
Kaiser Permanente of Southern California

As the enclosed data implies, a single act of unprotected vaginal intercourse-- assuming one partner is already HIV-positive, carries a risk in the neighborhood of less than one haf of one percent of transmitting the virus to the uninfected partner. Of course, the more times a couple has had such unprotected sex, the risk is greater. However, if an antibody test is negative three months after the last possible exposure (i.e. unprotected interocurse), then the partner has not been infected. Thus, your stepdaughter needs to either not be sexual or else use protection every time she has sex with her boyfriend, and if her test remains negative at 3 months, she is negative, indeed.

For information about HIV exposure, the following chart (Table) from the below MMWR article indicates the estimated per-act risk for getting HIV, listed by exposure route, please see:

Table: http://www.aegis.org/pubs/mmwr/2005/r402a1t1.gif

MMWR article: http://www.aegis.org/pubs/mmwr/2005/RR5402-1.html

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