Maseru, Sept. 30 — With the type of lifestyle that youth across the country seem to be engaging in lately, youth are advised to protect themselves during sexual intercourse through the usage of condoms as not only will they be protecting themselves from unintended pregnancies but also protect themselves from the risk of getting HIV.
This was said by a youth HIV activist Ms. Lerato Thoahlane in an interview with the agency on Monday while also speaking of ways of protection which youth and the general public can engage in to protect themselves from new HIV infections.
In this interview, Ms. Thoahlane mentioned that if one does not have HIV but are at risk of getting HIV, they should visit their health care facilities about pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) which involves taking a specific HIV medicine every day or an injectable HIV medicine every two months to reduce the risk of getting HIV through sex or injection drug use.
She also mentioned that protecting others while one already has HIV is also an important measure that one can take through being faithful to their treatment (antiretroviral therapy or ART) as prescribed by their doctor as ART can reduce the amount of HIV in the blood called viral load to the point where a test cannot detect it If you have an undetectable viral load, you will not transmit HIV to your partner through sex.
