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HIV Prevention (Expert Forum)
Possible mucous membrane exposure?
Answered by
University of Washington
Seattle - WA
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No questions will be accepted on the treatment of HIV/AIDS or its complications, viral load, and similar topics. If you have questions about a specific STD other than HIV/AIDS, please visit the STD Forum. Questions that do not pertain to the above topics will be removed from the forum.
If you have not done so, please review other threads in our archives for questions similar to yours and Dr. Handsfield's replies. Questions that duplicate other frequent ones, for which abundant replies exist, and that have little educational value for other forum users, will be DELETED WITHOUT RESPONSE. YOUR PAYMENT WILL NOT BE REFUNDED. The most common examples of such questions are those about low risk exposures to HIV, such as oral sex, condom- protected intercourse hand-to-genital exposure, and nonsexual contact with possibly infected blood or body fluids as well as symptoms of early HIV infection.
Possible mucous membrane exposure?
by jojled, May 21, 2007 12:00AM
I was working with freeze dried human IgG, which is made from plasma that's obtained by paying donors (higher risk groups) and pooling together up to 100,000 samples! Statistics show that some plasma would have made it into the pool from donors in the small "window period". No further processing is done to kill viruses (as done for products for hemophiliacs) because our product is not intended for human use (processing stops at Cohn fraction II). In fact, the plasma is treated in a way to keep its contents active. When I got it, it became airborne very easily. I fear i may have inhaled some and was supposed to wear a respirator, but the sample was improperly labeled, so i didn't. Given the direct route to the bloodstream via the lungs, should i get tested, or are my chances of getting HIV zero? I know HIV has been preserved by freeze drying. I also know that many hemophiliacs were infected with freeze dried powders in the 80's after re-hydrating them and injecting it into them. The epidemic stopped once the blood was screened, held for 60 days with donor retesting, and the powder was heat/solvent treated (ours is not treated in such a way). I fear that the alveoli in the lungs provide similar access to the bloodstream for this risky material. Two weeks afterward, i have a slightly swollen throat, a sore left armpit, and sharp pains throughout my body. I had these before reading they were symptoms so it's not my imagination. Thanks in advance for any advice!
Doctor's Answer
by H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D., May 21, 2007 12:00AM
, May 21, 2007 12:00AM
I cannot imagine that this constitutes a realistic risk for HIV. If aerosolized pooled IgG constituted even a theoretical risk of transmission of any infectious agent, I'm sure your employer would be taking stringent precautions to prevent it, especially if you are in the US or another industrialized country, where there are very strong regulatory requirements about such things. Therefore, your symptoms cannot be due to HIV, unless acquried in the traditional ways--and they don't sound much like HIV anyway.
But if you're nervous, it's fine with me if you have an HIV test. But first I think the place for you to express your concerns is with your employer or whoever is in charge of how the IgG product you are working with is prepared and managed.
HHH, MD
But if you're nervous, it's fine with me if you have an HIV test. But first I think the place for you to express your concerns is with your employer or whoever is in charge of how the IgG product you are working with is prepared and managed.
HHH, MD
It would be an easy matter to test the material for HIV antigen and/or DNA.
"Are you able to comment at all on any of this and maybe guestimate an odds of infection?" From my original reply: "I cannot imagine that this constitutes a realistic risk for HIV." My judgement of the odds is zero.