hiv exposure in sports

Quick question.  I was playing basketball in a local ymca and the game went on as normal.  After the game i noticed some blood on my arm and i didnt think anything of it because i thought it was just my own. I went and washed the blood off with soap and water when i got home. I noticed i didnt have a cut or anything so then i realized it was somebody elses.  I looked at my jersey and saw there was a little bit of blood on my jersey as well and i always wipe the sweat off of my face with my jersey. I am nervous because i am a paranoid person. Am i at any chance of invection. Please let me know.

[Xhost]

You are absolutely not at risk of HIV given the scenario you have outlined in your post. HIV is not transmitted this way, for a couple of reasons. First, HIV is an extremely fragile virus. Once outside of its host (the human body and the original, unknown vector) it begins to break down and lose infectivity fairly quickly. Second, your skin is an effective barrier to HIV, and prevents it from infecting the cells it likes to infect inside of your body.

And that is where most HIV infections take place, *inside* of your body, not on the surface of the skin. That's just the nature of the disease, and that is why casual contact with HIV infected blood products do not normally pose a risk of HIV infection. If that were not the case, as bad as HIV is now, it would be much, much worse for the human race.

Bottom line, you have nothing to worry about here in terms of HIV.

[pecha]

thanks for the quick response.

[joe22_joe22]

that same exact thing happened to me at a concert. i am sooo paranoid and this post just gave me peace of mind.