Controversy about survival of HIV outside the body?

[Anonymous000]

Dear all,

Many health forums state that HIV is a fragile virus and that it cannot surive long outside the body. However, if I dig a bit deeper in the literature I find completely different things.

This passage is from the History of AIDS by Glanz Veronika

"According to the CDC, if an HIV-infected person sheds blood due to a cut, that blood is only infectious for a few hours, because drying destroys HIV.  Scientists and medical authorities agree that HIV does not survive well in the environment, making the possibility of environmental transmission remote. HIV is found in varying concentrations or amounts in blood, semen, vaginal fluid, breast milk, saliva, and tears. (See the section below: Saliva, Tears, and Sweat) To obtain data on the survival of HIV, laboratory studies have required the use of artificially high concentrations of laboratory-grown virus. Although these unnatural concentrations of HIV can be kept alive for days or even weeks under precisely controlled and limited laboratory conditions, CDC studies have shown that drying even these high concentrations of HIV reduces the amount of infectious virus by 90 to 99 percent within several hours. Since the HIV concentrations used in laboratory studies are much higher than those actually found in blood or other specimens, drying of HIV-infected human blood or other body fluids reduces the theoretical risk of environmental transmission to that which has been observed--essentially zero. Incorrect interpretations of conclusions drawn from laboratory studies have unnecessarily alarmed some people.

Results from laboratory studies should not be used to assess specific personal risk of infection because (1) the amount of virus studied is not found in human specimens or elsewhere in nature, and (2) no one has been identified as infected with HIV due to contact with an environmental surface. Additionally, HIV is unable to reproduce outside its living host (unlike many bacteria or fungi, which may do so under suitable conditions), except under laboratory conditions, therefore, it does not spread or maintain infectiousness outside its host."

Especially the first sentence is alarming since they mention that spillages of blood can stay infectious for a few hours and it is unclear if this sentence applies to artifically high concentrations as well.

Does this mean that blood spills or other body fluids on surfaces are still infectious as long as they are not dry?

[Sara_MHModerator]

Hi, we've had a good exchange of information here.  HIV is not spread this way with no cases reported.  We are now going to close this discussion.  Luck to all.

***  thread closed ***

[CurfewX]

The amount of time that HIV "survives" is irrelevant.  The fact is that nobody gets HIV, and never has, from contact with blood on environmental surface.  Not even with cuts or scrapes - it NEVER happens.

[CurfewX]

Did you have a risk you'd like to ask about?

There is no controversy.  "Controversy" implies that the medical community is divided over whether there is or is not a risk for contracting HIV by encountering blood on surfaces, or anywhere outside the body.  There is no such division.  

Don't have unprotected, penetrative sex with someone of unknown status and don't share IV drug needles, and you will NEVER have to be concerned about HIV.

[Anonymous000]

I found the following passages in an article called:

Knowledge of HIV survival on skin-piercing instruments
among young adults in Nyanza Province, Kenya

"A recent review of the survival of nosocomial
pathogens on surfaces reported that HIV can survive
more than one week.15 In wet conditions, HIV can survive
much longer."

"Misinformation among residents of Nyanza Province about
risks for HIV in blood exposures is similar to misinformation
among many public health experts. For example, a web-based
training manual for nurses posted by the Johns Hopkins
Center for Clinical Global Health Education states that ‘HIV
cannot live outside body fluids more than a few seconds,’
and that ‘HIV can live between 30 seconds to one minute
when exposed to the air.’ The manual assures that ‘HIV is an
extremely delicate virus, which can be easily destroyed by
simple methods using chemicals such as bleach.’24 Similarly,
a news article in the British Medical Journal in 2007 quoted ‘a
senior research scientist at Harvard’s School of Public Health’
to say that ‘The HIV virus is extremely fragile, dying easily
and quickly once exposed to air’."

This only confuses me more... And yes I had a surface exposure since I stepped in wet blood

[malbat]

The answer to your question is in the passage itself.

"...HIV is unable to reproduce outside its living host "(unlike many bacteria or fungi, which may do so under suitable conditions), except under laboratory conditions, therefore, it does not spread or maintain infectiousness outside its host."

It doesn't need to dry. Once exposed, slight temperature changes and the air are good enough to damage the virus and it cannot latch on to the target cells.

[Anonymous000]

Yes, I read that too. But then again the first sentence says the opposite.... "According to the CDC, if an HIV-infected person sheds blood due to a cut, that blood is only infectious for a few hours, because drying destroys HIV"