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What is HIV?

Treating HIV

Living with HIV

Other health problems

For caregivers

For ASOs

Our commitment

How do you get HIV?

Question:
Where do you get most of your information on HIV?
 
My healthcare
provider
AIDS Service Organization (ASO)
Newspaper/
magazine articles
Web sites
Friends/family
   

 

You can get HIV if you:

  • Have oral, anal, or vaginal sex with a person who has HIV
  • Share drug needles or syringes with a person who has HIV

If you are pregnant and have HIV, you can pass the virus to your baby. Babies become infected during pregnancy, childbirth, or breast-feeding.

How you get infected

HIV spreads from person to person through these body fluids:

  • Blood
  • A man's semen and "pre-cum" (pre-seminal fluid)
  • Fluids in a woman's vagina (vaginal secretions)
  • Breast milk

You do not get HIV just by touching or being touched by infected blood or body fluids. The virus must get inside you and into your blood. It gets inside you through an open cut or sore on your skin or on a mucous membrane. These membranes are found in the penis, vagina, anus, rectum, mouth, and eyes.

Next >> Stopping the spread of HIV

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