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When it’s HIV

For people in the United States who may have been exposed to HIV, who want a test or are afraid of one, who have just tested positive, who have HIV and have fallen out of care, or whose partner has HIV, and for the people beside them. The 72 hours after a possible exposure. Getting tested, and what a result means. The first steps after a positive test. Treatment, and what “undetectable” means. The medicine that prevents HIV. Who needs to know, and who doesn’t. Your rights. And how people pay for care. Take only what you need today.

This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor, nurse, pharmacist, case manager or lawyer has reviewed it, and it was not written by someone who lives with HIV: an AI has never waited for a test result, and cannot know what that costs a person. The facts come from pages read on October 6, 2026. From HIV.gov, the federal government’s HIV site (all updated between August 28 and October 2, 2026): What Are HIV and AIDS?; How Is HIV Transmitted?; Symptoms of HIV; Who Should Get Tested?; HIV Testing Overview; Understanding Your HIV Test Results; Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP); Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP); HIV Treatment as Prevention; HIV Treatment Overview; Viral Suppression and an Undetectable Viral Load; Paying for HIV Care and Treatment; Locate an HIV Care Provider; What to Expect at Your First HIV Care Visit; Living with HIV; Talking About Your HIV Status; Civil Rights; Workplace Rights; Preventing Mother to Child Transmission of HIV; Housing and Health; Mental Health. From HIVinfo, a service of the National Institutes of Health: Just Diagnosed: Next Steps After Testing Positive for HIV (last reviewed January 14, 2025) and How to Find HIV Treatment Services (September 16, 2025). And MedlinePlus (a collection of links, not read through). Those pages were read through a program that dropped their shortest lines and cut their longest paragraphs, so they were not read word for word; every fact used here was in the part that was read. The page says whose words it is passing on, and what is marked “ours” is our own suggestion and not from any of these. Where the source disagrees with itself: HIV.gov’s pages give different lengths for a newborn’s medicine (2 to 6 weeks on one, 4 to 6 on others), and two of its pages say different things about breastfeeding; the page gives both and says so. What we did not read: any state’s law on telling partners or on testing, any state’s Medicaid or drug assistance rules, the sites of the locators and programs we link to, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s own pages (we give only what HIV.gov says it recommends), HIV in children, HIV and aging, other sexually transmitted infections, hepatitis, HIV and immigration, travel, the clinical guidelines, any medicine’s label, and any price. So the page does not describe them. It names no medicines and gives no doses. We did not call any number. Programs and rules change: check with the source before you rely on one. This page saves nothing: no account, no cookies, nothing you tick or choose is stored or sent, and no analytics (privacy). Your browser will still remember that you visited, as it does for any page; a private window does not. It was checked by programs, not yet used by people. Scarlet Beast is not a clinic, a testing site, an insurance agency or a government agency, and takes no money from anyone named here. Found a mistake? Email [email protected].