How is it that a couple can have HIV negative children despite one or both of them being HIV positive?

Question

How is it that a couple can have HIV negative children despite one or both of them being HIV positive?

In: Biology

Answer 1

I’m a family medicine resident so somewhat qualified I guess to answer. The transmission rate from mom to infant is only something like 10% without hiv treatment, this is because most of the time the virus does not cross the placenta. Sometimes it does and there is a riks of transmission to baby during delivery. If a mom is treated with antiretroviral therapy and has very low viral levels the transmission rate can be close to 0.