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Reinfection of the same strain of hpv

This is more of a general HPV question than specific to men or women.

My girlfriend has been diagnosed with a "high risk" strain of HPV (abnormal pap, followed by a scrape, then a diagnosis).  I've read all of the CDC literature, as well as about a dozen different sites.  At this point, we are both operating under the assumption that I am also infected with the same strain.

I've read up on adaptive immunity, and even spoke to a medical resident friend about how our immune systems work.  I don't know everything, but I think I have at least a hand-wavy idea about helpers, killers, memory cells, antibodies, ...  On to the question!

If my understanding of our immune systems is correct, and if I'm correct in my belief that I am infected with the same strain, it would seem that the claims of transmitting and having it transmitted back (I give it to her, she gives it to me, I give it to her, ... which was brought up as a concern by her ob/gyn) seems ... unlikely.  Unless one person has a slow immune system, or has been immunocompromised, and is passing large amounts of virus to the healthy person; it would seem as though the swapping itself is relatively insignificant in comparison to the normal viral reproduction rate already in the infected.  And once one person has fought off the HPV, reinfection from the same strain is effectively impossible, thanks to the memory-T cells and the body's increased response in such cases.

Is this the case?
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Avatar universal
and yes that is the case
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Avatar universal
from what ive been told y a lot of doctors is. once you have the virus and you fight it off with your immune system you have a low risk of getting reinfected for the same strain becuase the atibodies you make dont go away the stay in your body giving you an immunity to the strain. but the other strains can still infect you. it so messed up how the hpv virus works dont try to hard to understand it ive been trying for a long time now and i still have questions. the good thing is that she knows what she has and they can prevent the cancer from forming so thats good.
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