– unlike STIs like chlamydia, it is unlikely that you will pass the same strain of HPV back and forth with your partner. Once you have been infected with a type of HPV and your immune system has produced antibodies to fight the infection, you will become immune to that type.
Partners who are sexually intimate only with each other are not likely to pass the same virus back and forth. When HPV infection goes away the immune system will remember that HPV type and keep a new infection of the same HPV type from occurring again.
If you have high-risk HPV that sticks around or goes dormant and keeps coming back, that's when it becomes cancer causing (or what doctors call oncogenic). This means that it changes the cells of your cervix, penis, anus or mouth and leads to precancerous cells.
You're contagious for as long as you have the virus — regardless of whether or not you have symptoms. For example, even if your genital warts have disappeared, you can still spread the HPV that caused them if the virus is still in your body. Once your immune system destroys the virus, you're no longer contagious.
Multiple Sexual Partners
Because HPV is spread from one person to another by sexual contact, you increase your risk of getting a case of HPV when you have sex with multiple partners, even if you use a condom. While condoms can protect each partner from a variety of sexually transmitted diseases, HPV is not one of them.
Anyone who has had sex can get HPV, even if it was only with only one person, but infections are more likely in people who have had many sex partners. Even if a person delays sexual activity until marriage, or only has one partner, they are still at risk of HPV infection if their partner has been exposed.
Is HPV Contagious Forever? Most cases of HPV clear up on their own after one to two years, and you'll no longer be contagious once it leaves your system. However, the virus can remain dormant for years, and some people experience infections that stick around for much longer.
This means that when the immune system “clears” the infection, it is no longer present, so it cannot be spread to someone else. However, what is important to understand is that many people have HPV infections without symptoms, so they do not realize they are infected.
Use condoms the right way every time you have sex. This can lower your chances of getting all STIs, including HPV. However, HPV can infect areas the condom does not cover.
HPV is the most common STI. There were about 43 million HPV infections in 2018, many among people in their late teens and early 20s. There are many different types of HPV. Some types can cause health problems, including genital warts and cancers.
Most strains of HPV go away permanently without treatment. Because of this, it isn't uncommon to contract and clear the virus completely without ever knowing that you had it. HPV doesn't always cause symptoms, so the only way to be sure of your status is through regular testing.
Around 90% of HPV infections clear within 2 years. For a small number of women and people with a cervix, their immune system will not be able to get rid of HPV. This is called a persistent infection. A persistent HPV infection causes the cells of the cervix to change.
Often, HPV warts will appear three to six months after sexual relations with an infected person; or they may take months to appear; or they may never appear. Likewise, the interval between an infection with HPV and a cervical smear abnormality can vary from months to decades.
Previous research suggests that a key concern among individuals with other STIs, such as herpes and chlamydia, is telling a sexual partner. Unlike other STIs, there is no treatment for HPV, so it is not necessary to disclose HPV to current or previous sexual partners.
It's your decision whether or not to tell your partner you have HPV. If you do decide to tell your partner you have HPV, it might help to include these points: HPV is very common in women and men who have ever had sex - four out of five people will have HPV at some point in their lives, and most won't even know it.
Most patients urged partners to have check-ups and advised friends about Pap smear tests. Couple relationships were generally not affected by HPV infection, unlike their sexual lifestyles.
This is because it is difficult to get a good cell sample to test from the thick skin on the penis. Most people will not have visible symptoms if they are exposed to HPV. Therefore, for most, the virus is subclinical (invisible). This is especially true for males.
The HPV test is available only to women; no HPV test yet exists to detect the virus in men. However, men can be infected with HPV and pass the virus to their sex partners.
Think of it like chickenpox—that virus can lie dormant in the bodies of people who were infected as children, then come raging back as shingles later in life when the immune system weakens. It's the same with HPV. The reactivation risk may increase around age 50.
Modelling studies have estimated a transmission probability of 80% per any new partner (provided that either one is infected while the other one is susceptible). Most studies have focused on immediate concordance (cross-sectional) and have shown high rates between couples.
HPV is very common. It is estimated that up to 80% of people in Australia have HPV at some time in their lives. Many people who have HPV have no idea that they have been exposed to the infection.
No screening test is 100% effective
an HPV infection or abnormal cells can sometimes be missed (a 'false negative' result) abnormal cells can develop and turn into cancer in between screening tests.
Incubation period
2 to 3 months, with a range of 1 to 20 months for genital warts. It can take up to 10 years for a high-risk HPV infection to develop into cancer.
It's possible. In most cases, your immune system will eventually get rid of an HPV infection within 2 years. But HPV can stay in our bodies – sometimes without us knowing about it, as it is not detected with a test. This is called dormant or clinically insignificant HPV.