The Centers for Disease Control affirmed on National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, HIV positive men with undetectable viral loads pose no risk to their HIV negative partners.

“This means that people who take [HIV medications] daily as prescribed and achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to an HIV-negative partner,” the CDC wrote in a statement. “Across three different studies, including thousands of couples and many thousand acts of sex without a condom or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), no HIV transmissions to an HIV-negative partner were observed when the HIV-positive.”

The national awareness day took place Wednesday, Sept. 27.
Unfortunately in the same statement the CDC also reports that many HIV positive gay and bisexual men are not receiving proper treatment.

“However, according to a recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, too many gay and bisexual men living with HIV are not getting the care and treatment they need. Among gay and bisexual men living with diagnosed HIV, 61% have achieved viral suppression, more than in previous years, but well short of where we want to be,” the CDC wrote.

In order to prevent HIV transmission in the gay and bi men community the CDC also detailed what steps it’s currently taking:

– Funding health departments and community-based organizations (CBOs) to support HIV prevention services for gay and bisexual men. For example, under current cooperative agreements, CDC has awarded at least $330 million per year to health departments for HIV prevention among the most affected populations and is awarding nearly $11 million per year to CBOs to provide HIV testing to young gay and bisexual men of color and transgender youth of color.

– Supporting biomedical approaches to HIV prevention such as PrEP and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).

– Supporting projects to identify promising prevention strategies, such as Project PrIDE (PrEP, Implementation, Data to Care, and Evaluation), which is helping health departments implement PrEP and Data to Care demonstration projects for gay and bisexual men of color.

– Providing gay and bisexual men with HIV prevention and treatment messages through Act Against AIDS campaigns. For example, Doing It, which encourages all adults to get tested for HIV, includes many resources for gay and bisexual men. Start Talking. Stop HIV. helps gay and bisexual men communicate about HIV prevention, and HIV Treatment Works provides resources to help people live well with HIV.