What does it mean to be HIV positive?

What does it mean to be HIV positive?

Charles Farthing (Chief of Medicine, AIDS Healthcare Foundation) gives expert video advice on: What does it mean to be HIV positive?; Is a positive HIV test result a 'death sentence'? and more...

To be HIV positive means that you've got HIV antibodies in your blood, and if you're got HIV antibodies in your blood it means you've got HIV virus in your blood. It means you're infected with HIV. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're sick. A very few patients—1% of patients, perhaps—are HIV infected yet have an undetectable viral load all on their own. But the majority of people don't handle this virus very well, and will slowly get sick over the years and develop AIDS if not treated.