2 Virology, HIV and viral load

2.7 Reinfection with HIV

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Reinfection is where someone who is already diagnosed with HIV, is exposed to, and infected with, a second, different strain of HIV.

There have been several reports of cases of reinfection with HIV.

The reason that this is controversial, is that for many years it was assumed that once you had been infected with HIV, reinfection was not a risk.

It is not clear how often this occurs, or what the risk factors for reinfection are.

Most studies suggest that the risk is very low.

But as cases of reinfection have been reported, this is something to be aware of.

Most of these case reports have included people in early infection.

They have also included examples where someone whose treatment was working effectively has been reinfected by someone with drug resistant HIV, and where the treatment then stopped working.

This is the real risk of reinfection.

Two people with the same non-resistant virus, or with the same resistant virus would not risk the same difficulties from reinfection, as someone who is reinfected with drug resistant virus.