Strategies for managing
opportunistic infections

May 2008     View PDF     En español

Preventing infections in the first place

Some OIs can be prevented. For example, people who have never been exposed to herpes can practice safer sex to reduce their risk of getting genital herpes. If you’re not infected with the herpes virus, then there’s no worry of it becoming an OI or threatening to your health. Project Inform’s publication, Sex and Prevention Concerns for Positive People, contains information on how you can prevent many of these infections.

You can reduce your risk of some infections by practicing safer sex. Others can be prevented with vaccines. Still others can be avoided by handling and preparing food more safely or by being aware of and avoiding (when possible) the things that cause disease. This might include not handling birds or cats, even those kept as pets. It may also include using gloves when changing cat litter boxes, or having someone else deal with the litter.

Recently, outbreaks of drug-resistant staph skin infections have occurred. This infection can be spread through casual contact. Because these organisms are resistant to drugs, treatment may require intravenous therapy. Some speculate that in urban areas staph infections may be spread through something as simple as sharing equipment at the gym. Doing something as simple as putting a towel on gym equipment before using it, and not using that towel to wipe sweat from your body, may help you prevent a staph infection.

Preventing exposure to organisms is a great way to reduce your risk of getting an OI. In some cases, however, the organisms that cause OIs are in your every day environment. You may not be able to avoid them, or you may have already been exposed to them.

People living with HIV should be screened for many OIs when they first find out they’re HIV-positive, as part of their early lab screenings. In some cases, this allows people to know if they’re already exposed to an organism and helps them learn how to prevent infections they don’t already have. (For more information on these types of lab tests, call Project Inform’s Infoline at 1-800-822-7422.)

However, in the case of Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (also called PCP), it’s simply not known how the organism is spread. It’s assumed that most people are already infected with it. In that case, preventive treatment is routinely used if your immune system weakens and as the risk for PCP increases. PCP remains the leading cause of death of people with AIDS in the US and is largely preventable.