First Aid and HIV transmission

Several months ago, on an outdoor trip,  I performed minor first aid on a person I knew was HIV positive.  I wore gloves and cleaned up a small cut on his face, where the blood was mostly dried.  I changed my gloves once to get a band-aid,and avoid contaminating my supplies.  Afterwards, I wiped my hand with an alcohol wipe. I had no cuts, with the exception of perhaps a small cut around my nails.  I know that I used proper precautions and my exposure presents pretty much a zero risk of transmission.  However, like many people on this site, I can't get it out of my head. I had a negative rapid test at 5 weeks and a negative HomeAccess  test at 12 weeks.  Should I have any cause for concern?

[Edward W Hook, MD]

I understand your concern and hope I can help to alleviate it.  It certainly sounds as though you did everything right, making your first aid administration no risk to you.  Please realize that in hospitals and clinics  across the world, doctors glove to work with the blood of person with HIV every day yet no infections occur unless there is a breach of technique leading to a puncture wound with the HIV uninfected blood.  In addition, at 5 weeks, the HIV test would detected over 90% of infections which had resulted from an exposure 5 weeks early.  You really have nothing to worry about.  EWH