Hiv survival on organic surfaces (e.g. skin, hair etc)
Hallo. I have read a lot of articles before asking this question but I still have a question (maybe due to the fact that I do not have medical knowledge). We know that HIV
does not survive for very long outside the body. Actually as soon as the body fluids that contains are dried then 90-99% of the virus is not active, so there are no worries of contamination due to low concentration, and in just a few hours there is no active virus at all.
My question is whether the active time of the virus is affected by the surface or not. What if the surface is our own skin? Will this affect its active time? For example, let's say that we have body fluids on our skin and after some time (e.g. an hour) that skin (e.g. fingers
It doesn't take the virus in fluid to be dried to become inactive. All it takes is the virus outer shell to become damaged and it's inability to attach to the CD4 cell.
, e.g. blood, and we didn't noticed to clean it as soon as it gets dry the most of the virus is deactivated and there are no risk of contamination. There are no differences from being dried in an organic surface. Right ?
Teak thank you for your answer. From what I have read in medical articles about HIV, itremains active for a very short period, i.e. the period that the body fluids are intact. As soon as the organic fluids becomes dry and the virus is exposed to air then it becomes inactive.
I know that in about 20 minutes to 1 hour all the quantity of the fluid is dried. However, what I was asking is whether the organic surface, such as skin and hair, affect this time.
It doesn't take the virus in fluid to be dried to become inactive. All it takes is the virus outer shell to become damaged and it's inability to attach to the CD4 cell.
Yes, I do not disagree with that. I was talking in general. The virus outer shell may be damaged from heat, light, ph of the water if the body fluid is spread in water etc. But there is a possibility that the body fluid "protect" some of the virus for a short period. As soon as it gets dry there is surely no "protection". I know that I am talking about the worst case scenario and it does not need to be all the virus inactive to be safe (since it needs a great concentration) but I was wondering if in this case th time needed to be all inactive is affected when it is on organic surface.
I am confused. I have read articles that are claiming that virus remain active for a short period. With a very quick search I found this which is representative of the articles that I have found in the past.
"An extensive study on the survival of HIV after drying was reported by Resnik and coworkers (Stability and inactivation of HTLV-III/LAV under clinical and laboratory environments. Journal of the American Medical Association 1986;255:1887-91). The purpose of the study was to determine the inactivation rate of HIV under experimental conditions - an objective that required the use of extremely high levels of HIV. The concentrations studied were at least 100,000 times greater than those typically found in the blood of HIV-infected persons. It is not surprising that when such high concentrations of HIV were used, the virus could be detected 1 to 3 days after drying. Upon close examination of these data and from other results that have been obtained by CDC, however, it is clear that drying causes a rapid (within 1 or 2 hours) reduction in virus concentration and renders 90 to 99 percent of the virus inactive."
I do realize that it was a test with very high concentrated fluids and obviously it is a scenario of fiction to find active virus from ordinary body fluids after days but it does conclude that "drying causes a rapid (within 1 or 2 hours) reduction in virus concentration and renders 90 to 99 percent of the virus inactive". Do I get it wrong?
Thank you for your answer and sorry if I am becoming bothersome
Thank you all of you for your answers. Unfortunately the web is full of answers of the kind "only if it was not dried you are at risk" etc. You can very easily become misinformed. Teak it is not that I wasn't paying attention since I ask only about the activity time of the virus. :)
Anyway. Thank you all of you. I think I have it clear now and sorry for being perisistent. But when the phobias start, the brain's activity stops. Thank you again
I know that my question is already answered but I am posting this in order to not misinform other people. Here is a comment from the author of the article that I have posted above.
"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."