HIV is increasingly recognised as a chronic and manageable disease, thus pregnancy planning has become an important issue for HIV-positive women of child-bearing age. A growing number of these women wish to start families. We will carry out research in this area that will explore a number of clinical issues including the availability of fertility clinics to assist HIV+ women, the fertility desires of HIV-positive women and best practices for sperm washing and the use of genital secretion HIV viral load testing to help monitor pregnancy.

Dr. Loutfy has recently received funding from the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CanFAR)to begin this work.