A B.C. man jailed for having unprotected sex with five women without telling them he was HIV-positive has lost his appeal against some of those convictions.

Adrian Sylver Nduwayo was found guilty in 2010 on four counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of aggravated assault in relation to a series of encounters with the victims. Three of those women contracted HIV after having sex with Nduwayo, while two did not.

He was sentenced to six years in prison, but filed an appeal on two of the convictions, arguing that the B.C. Supreme Court judge who heard the case had made errors in his decision.

Nduwayo contended that during his relationship with one of the women, he was taking improved medications and his viral load was low enough that there wasn’t a significant risk of transmitting HIV. But the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed that argument in a judgment Tuesday.

“While his viral load was not high, neither was it undetectable,” Justice Elizabeth Bennett wrote in the unanimous decision.

“Mr. Nduwayo’s immune system was compromised and he was still infectious during this time. The risk of infection increased with each event of unprotected sexual intercourse, of which the trial judge found there were at least seven.”

The judge went on to say that Nduwayo’s conduct led to a “significant risk” of serious harm for the woman, who did not contract the disease but did conceive a child during the seven-month relationship. Nduwayo was engaged to be married to another woman at the time.

In his arguments against the second conviction, Nduwayo argued that the judge made a mistake by considering the fact that the victim had contracted HIV rather than simply looking at the risk of her being infected. The appeals court dismissed that argument as plainly “absurd.”

“The interpretation Mr. Nduwayo propounds does not accord with a common-sense view of the logic and rationale underlying criminalization in these circumstances. His argument requires this court to accept that a significant risk of HIV transmission constitutes deprivation, but actual HIV transmission in the absence of a significant risk does not,” Bennett wrote.

“In my respectful view, where a person suffers actual harm in the form of contracting HIV, the element of deprivation is satisfied.”

Nduwayo immigrated to Canada from Rwanda in 1993. He received his HIV-positive diagnosis in 1996 and has been taking anti-retroviral medication ever since. As of the 2010 sentencing decision, he was divorced from his wife but under good medical care and feeling healthy.

The Supreme Court of Canada is currently considering whether it should still be a crime for HIV-positive people with a low risk of transmission to keep their conditions from their sexual partners. HIV advocates argue that the current laws criminalize the disease and don’t acknowledge the significant scientific advancements in treatment.