Galway nurse Aoife Commins believes that as a white, heterosexual woman who is knowledgeable about sexual health, she is an example of how becoming HIV-positive can happen to anyone.
She was diagnosed when living in Australia in 2020. She and her new male partner at the time had taken routine tests for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, and had both received negative results. But it was only after a random decision to go to donate blood together, coincidentally on the same week in May that they had unprotected sex for the first time, that they learned all was not as it seemed.
Several days after giving blood, the clinic rang him to say he needed to…