Thanks to technology, the field of medicine has advanced greatly, but there are still diseases out there that have a certain stigma attached to them, such as HIV. Due to this stigma, when it comes to choosing a sperm donor, many would typically steer clear of donors who have been tested positive for the disease.
However, over in New Zealand, in a bid to reduce stigma, the country has since launched what is possibly the world’s first HIV positive sperm bank. The sperm bank begun with three male donors from New Zealand who are living with HIV, but they have an undetectable viral load, meaning that the amount of the HIV virus in their blood is so low that it cannot be detected by standard methods.
While this does not mean that they have been cured, it has been suggested that the treatment for their HIV disease is working well enough to the point where the virus cannot be passed on. This means that if their sperm is selected by would-be parents, the resulting baby would not be affected by it, and barring other medical conditions, the baby should still be born without any issues.
That being said, the clinic will of course inform people and make it abundantly clear that the sperm they are about to receive are from donors with HIV, but at the same time are being treated to the point where it is safe enough that the virus will not be able to be passed down to their children.
Filed in . Read more about Health and Social Hit. Source: theguardian