Answer
Taking your HIV meds as prescribed by your doctor reduces your viral load (amount of HIV in the blood) and helps keep it low. It can also help you achieve viral load suppression, which means having fewer than 200 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood. HIV meds can lower your viral load to a point where it becomes undetectable by a lab test. This is referred to as an undetectable viral load. With an undetectable viral load, HIV cannot be transmitted through sex, and it also prevents perinatal transmission and reduces the risk of transmission through breastfeeding. This is known as undetectable=untransmittable (U=U). Taking your HIV meds as prescribed helps prevent drug resistance, which can limit your treatment options and spread drug-resistant HIV strains to others. Learn more in our article, HIV: The Basics.
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