Gender Differences In HIV Transmission

Gender Differences In HIV Transmission

In heterosexual couples where one partner is HIV-positive, viral load (the amount of detectable virus in the blood), is a much stronger predictor of the risk of transmission in women than in men, according to a UAB study recently published in AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses. "Although we've known that high viral loads are associated with a person's risk of transmission, it appears that women with high viral loads are much more contagious than men with high viral loads," says Susan Allen, M.D., associate professor of epidemiology and international health at UAB. "We found that women who transmitted the disease had four times the viral load of those who did not. In men, that level was only one-and-a-half times greater."

Contact Joy Carter, Media Relations, 205-934-1676 or [email protected].

###