Can I infect my wife with AIDS?
Q: I am a 32 years old male. Yesterday, I underwent a test for HIV/AIDS in a laboratory. It came out positive. I am very worried about my wife. What if she is also HIV positive. We are married since 8 months. We almost had sex everyday since we got married. I got her checked today and her report is negative. I just wanted to make sure that is this report correct? Do we need to take any precautions? Can she also get AIDS in the future? Please help.
A:The first thing is the question of your HIV status. If this is the result of a single test, please get another test done from a reliable lab. You should understand that a single HIV positive report does not mean much. To make a diagnosis positive tests must always be repeated since single tests can be false positive for no reason of the Lab. Therefore if you got the result of a single test, get a repeat test done from another Lab. If the second report is also positive then we must assume that you do have HIV infection. If the second test is negative, then you are not infected and can forget about it. Even one negative test has a much stronger predictive value than any single HIV positive test. If indeed you are positive, then it is still not necessary that your wife has already got the infection, she may have been fortunate and not yet infected. It is also possible that your wife is infected but is still in the window period so is testing negative. Until you are sure of your status, do not take any chances and start using a condom from the start to finish of every sexual exposure.