People believe many wrong things about sexual relationships and what makes safe relationships.

• Young women think that older (possibly married) men are “safe”. They don’t remember that their older male partner may have had several partners and high exposure to HIV – even if he is currently married to one woman.
• Adult men think young women are “safe”. They don’t consider that young women, although they’ve only been having sex for a little while, may have  had high exposure to HIV through another older male partner.
• Some people believe that having more than one partner is not so risky, unless the partner is a sex worker or having sex with a sex worker. In fact,  having more than one partner at the same time is very risky, in particular in relationships, in which condoms are not used.

What you already know

• You know a lot about HIV and AIDS. You know that you can get HIV from having unprotected sex.
• You know AIDS is a disease that affects most Zimbabwean families. And that HIV slowly weakens the immune system – the part of the
  body that fights disease.
• You know HIV is a virus that lives in our bodies for many years and eventually causes AIDS. You know that there is no cure for AIDS.

But here are some things about HIV and AIDS that you might not know.

Scientists have also found that:

• HIV can be transmitted in every sexual act, but it is most likely to be transmitted by someone with a high concentration of HIV in their blood.
• when you get HIV, it begins to multiply rapidly before your body has made antibodies (body soldiers) to fight it.
• once your body has made antibodies (body soldiers) to fight HIV, the amount of HIV in your blood will decrease, usually for 5 to 10 years. Then your body begins to weaken, you’ll be very sick and have a lot of HIV in your blood again.

You need to know that

• during the first 3 months of being infected, you have the highest concentration of HIV in your blood (but you will not notice it). This is called the window period.
• during the first 3 months you are much more likely to pass the virus on to other people,
• if you have unprotected sex with someone who has recently been infected themselves, they are very likely to pass on HIV to you.

Download HIV and I

This article was exerpted from  HIV and I, a pamphlet that was developed as part of the OneLove campaign in Zimbabwe. The contents also cover:

• advice on how to make healthy choices
• Information on HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe and what the information means for different target groups
• Where to go for help

The pamphlet is available in English, Ndebele and Shona.

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