Every time a person with HIV who is not virally suppressed has sex with an HIV-negative person,there is a chance the HIV-negative partner will get HIV. Some sex acts (such as, kissing, touching, and oral sex) have extremely low to no HIV risk. You have a much higher risk for getting or transmitting HIV through vaginal and anal sex.

Estimate the HIV Risk shows risks when one partner has HIV and the other partner doesn’t. It gives you information for a single sex act at a time. You can change the settings on the tool to get information about a variety of sex acts, to see how one type of sex act is riskier than another.

Choosing to use protective factors (such as condoms, pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP , and antiretroviral therapy, or ART) can lower or eliminate the HIV risk for each sex act. This tool provides information on how much each protective factor reduces HIV risk.

Other risk factors (such as having an acute HIV infection or having another STD) can raise the HIV risk for each sex act.  This tool also provides information on how much each risk factor increases HIV risk.

Estimate the HIV Risk can give you different kinds of HIV risk information. It can show you:

• The HIV risk for different sex acts
• Which sex acts are riskier than others
• How different protective factors reduce HIV risk
• How different risk factors increase HIV risk

About the Numbers

If you click on “Show numbers,” you will see the number of times HIV could be transmitted for every 10,000 sex acts. The numbers may seem small, but they show the risk for one sex act. Your risk for getting or transmitting HIV increases every time you have sex with a discordant partner (a partner with a different HIV status).

Sexual activities

Estimate the HIV Risk displays the number 138 for the risk of getting HIV from receptive anal sex. This represents that the risk for getting HIV from receptive anal sex (without condoms, PrEP, or ART) is about 138 per 10,000 sex acts. So, on average for an HIV-negative receptive partner, there is about a 1 in 72 chance of getting HIV for every act of receptive anal sex with an HIV-positive insertive partner. In the anal sex message of the HIV Risk Reduction Tool, the risk is displayed as 1 in 72.