In the end, every person is different. Some people are more vulnerable to infection than others. Others may have specific goals, like starting a family or getting pregnant, that require special considerations and carry different risks.

To protect yourself, you need to take an honest look at your personal risk factors and design an individual prevention strategy to minimize the risks.

This article looks at eight different tools and techniques that you can incorporate into your own HIV prevention strategy.

Start with knowing the basics:

HIV is spread by intimate contact with semen, preseminal fluid (“pre-cum”), blood, vaginal fluid, rectal fluid, and breast milk. HIV is mainly spread through anal sex, vaginal sex, and shared needles. HIV can also be spread from mother to child during pregnancy or breastfeeding, or through occupational exposure (such as a needlestick injury). HIV cannot be spread by touching, kissing, mosquitos, shared utensils, toilets, sinks, drinking fountains, spitting, or touching body fluids.

Apretude is a newer PrEP option that does not involve taking a daily pill. It is given as an injection administered every two months to the uninfected partner and has been shown to greatly reduce infection risk.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), all individuals who are sexually active adults and adolescents should be educated about PrEP. PrEP is recommended for anyone more likely to be diagnosed with HIV, including people in serodiscordant relationships when their partner’s viral load is detectable or unknown; people with one of more sexual partners of unknown HIV status; and people who have had a bacterial STI in the past six months.

PrEP can be used by anyone at risk of HIV who wants to reduce their odds of infection.

A viral load is a measurement of the amount of virus in a sample of blood. Undetectable means that no virus was detected in the blood sample, which is defined as having under 200 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood.

Based on evidence from the PARTNER1 and PARTNER2 studies which ran from 2010 to 2018, you cannot pass the virus to others if you achieve and sustain an undetectable viral load.

Preventing STDs is important because they can increase the risk of HIV by compromising delicate vaginal or anal tissues. This is not only true of STDs like syphilis that cause open sores but also any STD that causes genital inflammation.

With advances in HIV therapy, serodiscordant couples today have a greater opportunity than ever to conceive—enabling pregnancy while minimizing the risk of transmission to a partner without HIV.

In fact, the combination of PrEP and an undetectable viral load should all but ensure protection against transmission in serodiscordant relationships.

By placing the mother on antiretroviral therapy early in the pregnancy, the risk of transmission is extremely low. Even if treatment is started later in the pregnancy, the overall risk is still less than 2%.

Since HIV can be found in breastmilk, nursing should also be avoided.

And, it’s not only PWIDSs who are at risk. Their sexual partners may also be at risk, particularly if they are unaware of their partner’s drug use.

Free, government-sponsored needle exchange programs are available in many states to prevent the spread of HIV and other bloodborne infections (like hepatitis C). Clean needle programs have been shown to dramatically reduce the risk of HIV among PWIDs by reducing the risk of needle sharing.

Called post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), the strategy works best if started soon after exposure to the virus. Research has shown that PEP can reduce the risk of HIV by up to 81% if started within 72 hours. The earlier you start treatment, the better.

Internal or external condomsUsing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) if you don’t have HIVMaintaining an undetectable viral load if you have HIVStarting HIV therapy if you are pregnantAvoiding breastfeeding if you have HIVAvoiding shared needles or syringesUsing post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) if accidentally exposed to HIV

Education is also key. The more that you know about HIV and how to avoid it, the better protected you will be.