It also may depend on where he was in his infection when they were having sex (I'm jumping in here not knowing the timeline) -- latent stage rates of transmission is pretty low, eg 1-2 new cases / 1000 x according to a paper I read on transmission in discordant couples in sub-Saharan Africa (numbers are harder to arrive at where complicated by condom use, which is a sad statement).
As an aside, it must be the case that infectivity is much higher at some points, and is known to be higher with co-occurring HSV-2, higher viral loads, etc. Otherwise HIV wouldn't be an epidemic at the level it is.
I'm not saying that one should feel secure that HIV transmission rates are low in latent stages of infection, just that depending on his infection it's very plausible that he could have had fairly regular sex with his new wife and she could have remained HIV negative.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-06-04 06:26 pm (UTC)As an aside, it must be the case that infectivity is much higher at some points, and is known to be higher with co-occurring HSV-2, higher viral loads, etc. Otherwise HIV wouldn't be an epidemic at the level it is.
I'm not saying that one should feel secure that HIV transmission rates are low in latent stages of infection, just that depending on his infection it's very plausible that he could have had fairly regular sex with his new wife and she could have remained HIV negative.