I just found out my partner is HIV-positive. Help!

The long answer

There are three separate issues here:

1. The risk of you contracting HIV yourself 

2. Whether a person is legally bound to disclose their HIV status 

3. The breakdown in trust between you and your partner because she didn’t inform you about her HIV status.

Let’s look at these questions separately:

1. The risk of you contracting HIV yourself 

It can take up to six months on antiretrovirals (ARVs), though often less, for your partner’s viral load to be undetectable. If her viral load is undetectable, she cannot infect you with HIV even though she will continue to test HIV-positive herself.

PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, which is also an ARV, can cut your risk of getting HIV through having sex, even if you are exposed.

It is a good idea to get tested to see if you have HIV. If your test comes back negative and you and your partner continue to have sex, it is a good idea to get tested regularly until her viral load becomes undetectable.

It is important for your partner to go onto ARVs as soon as possible, for her own health and to reduce the risk of transmitting HIV to you.

If you do test HIV-positive, it is ok: ARVs are very effective and will help you to live a normal healthy life. You will need to take them for life or until a cure is found.

2. Whether a person is legally bound to disclose their HIV status 

In South Africa, you are not legally obliged to disclose your HIV status to anyone. Section 14 of the Constitution states that everyone has the right to privacy. The Constitution’s Bill of Rights protects the rights and privacy of those living with HIV/AIDS.

As Nathan Geffen and Ashleigh Furlong wrote in a 2016 article for GroundUp, there are also no laws that criminalise non-disclosure, transmission or exposure to HIV. Only the general criminal laws apply.

Geffen and Furlong quote Judge Edwin Cameron arguing that “even if HIV-positive people, who know their status, have unprotected sex and without stating their status to their partners, they should be prosecuted only if they were intentionally trying to infect their partners.”

3. The breakdown in trust between you and your partner because she didn’t inform you about her HIV status.

When you discover that your intimate partner has chosen not to inform you of her HIV status, you may feel betrayed and angry. That is natural. 

But it is worth considering why your partner may not have told you: all the studies on this topic indicate that women, particularly, are afraid to disclose their HIV status to their partners, because HIV is so stigmatised and is seen as shameful. 

They fear being rejected and abandoned by their partners; some fear physical violence and some fear they will simply lose everything. 

There is no doubt that for the health of the relationship it is a far better thing to tell your partner the truth rather than have him discover it, as you did. But when people are scared, they are less likely to tell the truth.

Before taking any hasty decisions about staying or leaving, perhaps you and your partner should think about consulting a counsellor who has experience of these things. Consulting a counsellor may be able to help you rebuild trust between the two of you, and perhaps even make your relationship stronger.

Here are the contact details of organisations you could reach out to for help:

• loveLife 

Tel: 0800 121 900 

Please-Call-Me to 083 323 1023 

Facebook page

• Treatment Action Campaign

Tel: 021 422 1700

Email: info@tac.org.za 

• National AIDS Helpline

Tel: 0800 012 322

Email: aidshelpline.org.za

Wishing you the best,
Athalie