NPR
Love, Drugs & Condoms
Couples with different HIV status face a new reality
Erastus with his wife Winnie and two of his children Rain (left) and Rose (right). Photographed at home in Got Agulu, Siaya, Kenya, 2025.
Erastus shows his ARVs (antiretroviral drugs) at home, Got Agulu, Siaya, Kenya, 2025.
Caleb & Diana, photographed at Got Agulu hospital's HIV testing service booth, Kenya, 2025. Diana is a HIV Champion /Educator and Caleb used to work as a HIV Counsellor but is now a farmer. They met at this hospital and still collect their drugs at this facility.
Robert & Milicent, photographed at Mildmay Kenya which is on the same ground as Bondo District Hospital, Siaya, Kenya, 2025.
Mildmay Kenya team member Naomi Onyango, photographed at the Mildmay Kenya offices, located near Bondo District Hospital, Siaya, Kenya, 2025.
written by Viola Kosome
Let's say you fall in love with someone harboring a deadly -- and highly infectious -- virus. And you think … is it crazy to get married?
Sometimes love conquers all — with the help of modern medicine.
That's the story of serodiscordant couples — the term used when one partner is HIV positive and the other is HIV negative.
Robert Ochweda and Millicent Akoth of Kenya are one such couple. She is HIV positive — she caught the virus from her former husband. He is a fisherman who is HIV negative. After the two of them fell in love, he says he was afraid to marry her lest he contract the virus.
He was able to overcome his fears.
"I have been able to stay safe by using condoms and PrEP," Ochweda explains, referring to a pill that prevents infection. And The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention writes: "Most condoms are highly effective in preventing HIV."
His wife takes antiretroviral pills that reduce her viral load, so she does not face the risk of death from AIDS. Those pills also reduce the risk that she will infect her husband.
This year, couples in this category are especially anxious. They say that, in the wake of the Trump administration's dramatic foreign aid cuts and dismantling of USAID, the agency that supported health-related programs, it's become harder to find the pills and condoms that keep them safe.