Parents HIV+ with healthy children

Nowadays, there’s over 35 million people infected with HIV in the world, and 75% of them are in their reproductive years. Because of the appearance of retroviral medication, their quality of life and their life expectancy has increased significantly over the last years, causing some of this people to think about having children. Obviously, even though the viral charge is lower thanks to these new therapies, the presence of just one viral particle or infected cell implies an evident risk of infection to their couple or to the possible offspring.

In men, HIV presence in semen just happens in the free particles HIV-1 present in the seminal plasma and in other non-reproductive cells like lymphocytes CD-4 (white blood cells), but not in the spermatozoa (they do not have virus receptors). In the Specialized Assisted Reproduction Labs, through density gradients and various washings, the seminal plasma where viral particles are and the potential infectious cells get separated from the spermatozoas, which only then would be used to have an AI or an IVF-ICSI.

Before their utilization, this spermatozoids are analysed through molecular techniques ( by DNA or RNA) to check the virus absence.