The World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed that women can use any reversible contraceptive method of their choice as none is related to increased HIV risks.
In its latest revision of guidelines published on August 29, WHO said that contraceptives, including progestogen-only injectables, implants and intrauterine devices (IUDs), are safe as their review is supported by scientific evidence.
WHO advises that all women should be allowed to have access to a wide range of modern contraceptive methods.
“A woman’s risk to HIV should not restrict her from choosing her preferred method of contraceptives. All women should have a wide range of contraceptive methods, HIV prevention, and HIV treatment if need be,” the executive director of Universal Health Coverage/Life Course at WHO Peter Salama said.
WHO’s 2015 guidelines had however shown that some studies had related the use of some contraceptive methods, specifically progestogen-only injectables (POIs), to high HIV risks.
In the guidelines, WHO had suggested that women at high risk of HIV who are using progestogen-only injectables (POIs) should be informed that available studies on the association between POI contraception and HIV acquisition have important methodological limitations hindering interpretation.
Part of the 2015 guidelines read that ‘while some studies suggest that women using POI contraception are at high risk of acquiring HIV, other studies have not found this association’.
The global agency then said that this association would largely depend on a country, the rate at which injectables are used as contraceptive methods and the country’s HIV prevalence.
In its most recent review guidelines, however, WHO said that random clinical trials made to show the evidence for Contraceptive Options and HIV Outcomes, did not show any statistically significant HIV acquisition among women using different types of contraceptive methods.
According to WHO, the recent review supersedes the previous studies that had been available to guide them.