A good friend of mine lives with HIV. One of the first things that he had to cope with at the age of 25 when he found out, was the realization that he would never be a father. Let me fast-forward and say that he is a father, married to his wonderful partner, and they are well on their way to having their second child.
Even people who live with HIV can undergo surrogacy processes using a sperm washing. There are several techniques for this in specific clinics, but in the United States, for example, it’s done using the SPAR (Special Program of Assisted Reproduction) project, which is a research foundation from Boston.
SPAR’s research discovered that undetectable viral load does not fully indicate the complete lack of the virus in the seminal fluid, and therefore sperm washing in the United States is conducted using the SPAR technique, which guarantees that the sperm samples are washed clean of the virus.
After the sperm is washed it is completely clean of the HIV virus and so it’s safe for use in fertilization, pregnancy, surrogacy, and any other medical use. The SPAR program is approved by the FDA, but other countries have their own rules.
The first birth using the SPAR program in the United States was in 1999, and there has never been a case of virus transmission with it, thanks to the special technique.
