Public Health Service Guidelines for the Management of Possible Sexual, Injecting-Drug-Use, or Other Nonoccupational Exposure to HIV, Including Considerations Related to Antiretroviral Therapy

Therapy After Nonoccupational HIV Exposure

Health-care providers may want to provide their patients with a system for promptly initiating evaluation, counseling, and follow-up services after a reported sexual, injecting-drug-use, or other nonoccupational HIV exposure that might put a patient at high risk for acquiring infection. Sexual exposure also can put a patient at risk for other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and pregnancy. Injecting-drug- use exposure through shared injection equipment can put a patient at risk for acquiring other viral infections (e.g., hepatitis B and hepatitis C). All persons evaluated for possible nonoccupational HIV exposure should be counseled to initiate, resume, or improve risk-reduction behaviors to avoid future exposure and to prevent possible secondary transmission until their current HIV infection status is determined.