"It totally shifted my perception of what[having HIV] meant,"she says.
Landy is sharing her story for a new campaign from HIV organisation The Institute of Many titled"U=U":undetectable equals untransmissible.
An offshoot of a global campaign,it aims to raise awareness in Australia that,once a person with HIV achieves an undetectable viral load – measured as fewer than 50 copies of the virus per millilitre of blood – through antiretroviral treatment,there is no risk they will transmit the virus through sexual activity or pregnancy.
Professor Sharon Lewin,from the University of Melbourne's Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity,says that while it varies from person to person,people living with HIV generally achieve an undetectable viral load – measured through a blood test – after a month of taking antiretroviral medication.
"By six months we would expect nearly every patient to have an undetectable viral load. If a patient didn't have an undetectable viral load by six months,we would then look at changing their treatment."
While studies dating back to 2010 have suggested that transmission is greatly reduced on treatment,two recent studies have shown that having an undetectable viral load means there is no risk of transmitting HIV through sex:PARTNERS,an observational study of European heterosexual and male homosexual partners conducted from 2012 to 2016,and Opposites Attract,a study of homosexual men in Thailand,Brazil and Australia over the same period published by UNSW's Kirby Institute last year.
"Together,that data tells us that the risk of transmitting the virus sexually,if your viral load is undetectable,is zero,"Professor Lewin says.
The findings were endorsed by the International AIDS Society last year.
There has been much buzz around pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP),an antiretroviral drug taken by HIV negative people to protect themselves from the transmission of HIV. After being approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration in 2016,federal health minister Greg Hunt announced PrEP would be subsidised by the Australian Government through the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme from April 1 in a press conference yesterday.
But Landy wishes more people were aware that people living with HIV are also able to protect others from transmission.
"People are shocked and amazed that I can have sex without transmitting when I tell them,"she says."They just don't know."