CDC declares people on HIV medication cannot transmit virus to sexual partners

While researchers may have developed a solution to kill the HIV virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared that HIV patients cannot transmit the virus to sexual partners if they have suppressed their viral load with medications.

This comes as a breakthrough, as until now, the agency had refused to say for certain that people who take HIV medication regularly cannot transmit the virus to their partners.

Activists and campaigners for years have been trying for years to change that notion since every clinical trial and study showed those with ‘undetectable’ virus load have zero percent risk of transmission.

The move, which was announced last week in a letter to mark National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, has been hailed as a 'breakthrough against stigma and for HIV prevention' by the HIV community.

Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the HIV/AIDS division at the National Institutes of Health, was the first high-level figure to back the statement that 'U=U' (undetectable equals untransmittable'.

While public health officials have often cited concerns that we need to explore more precide HIV testing methods to detect hidden reservoirs of virus, the CDC and NIH have concluded that even though someone with HIV could have hidden reservoirs of the virus, there is conclusive evidence that those traces are not viable and cannot be transmitted.