Blood splatter on my face

[peelingfree]

Dear Doctor,
                 I was persuaded to attend a concert last night which was held at a popular gay venue which, due to my orientation, I would not normally have attended. While waiting downstairs on a friend, an individual (I'm not sure if he was gay, and if so, if he was infected) came running around the corner with blood trickling from his nose down to his mouth and with a giant sight/exhhale, managed to somehow hit me straight in the face with droplets of his blood. I'm not sure if any got into my eye, I simply felt the spray on my face and paniced. I immediately rubbed my eyes and tried to douse them (in my desperation, please don't judge) with my saliva. I then used some baby wipes I had in the car to wipe down my hands (which I'd used to clear the blood from my face, leaving two streaks of blood on my hands) my face and my eyes some 5 minutes after the initial spray on my face. After getting home some 15 minutes later, I washed my hands and face with an anti-bacterial wash, and used water to wash out my eyes twice over (though I'm not sure if I effectively managed, despite being sober).
    Now, I know that generally I am a very paranoid person when it comes to my health, but, I know that if a droplet of infected blood were to be sprayed into my eyes from a fresh bleed, then it is almost a certainty that I was also infected, which is a prospect that is currently horrifying me. So, firstly, could you kindly outline the risks that I face after this event, and when should I go for a test to see if I'm infected, 12 weeks? Furthermore, would a hepatitis test be accurate after one day or should I wait longer for that also? Finally, are there any symptoms that I should be watching out for? I am feverish though that was present before I this incident.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Slow down.  You are overreacting to an extremely low risk event.

If there really was a splash of blood into your eye, then there is a miniscule risk you might have been infected, if the person had HIV.  But you don't know for sure that happened.  And if infected blood did get in your eye, where did you come up with "almost a certainty" you were infected?  Even if that happened, there is less than one chance in many thousand of HIV transmission.  And of course the odds are the person wasn't HIV infected.  (Assuming he was gay -- which you don't know -- the average risk in most cities would be roughly a 1 in 10 chance he had HIV.)

All things considered, there is no realistic chance of infection.  I'll bet in the past year, not one person in the entire US has been infected by such an improbable string of events.  You are not likely to be the first.

You should see a health care provider, calmly describe the situation, then follow his or her advice about testing.  Personally, I don't see sufficient risk to require testing.  But if you decide to get tested, just have a standard antibody test in 6-8 weeks.  In the meantime, try to relax.  People just don't get HIV in this way.

Best wishes--- HHH, MD

[peelingfree]

Thank you very much for your reply. Indeed, upon a fresh night's sleep and a reconsideration of events, I find myself unable to recall the mindframe in which I was when I posted this message. I was very angry at the person when I got home, but I'm glad that at the time I was more concerned with the person than with myself, feeling very empathetic having seen the poor guy running with blood on him and a broken nose, and made sure he was out of the club, out of the rain and called an ambulance for him before I left him with his friends. It goes a long way to show that even educated individuals hold alot of fallacies regarding HIV transmission and when faced with the slightest, most remote risk to themselves, abandon logic and clear thinking for a paniced, 'worst case senario' approach to the situation. It would be in everybody's best interests if these matters were taught in schools more thoroughly. Although we can look with confidence while looking at countries such as Russia for their appalling record of treating HIV patients, even in the health sector, we need to remember that irrational feelings are natural when fear strikes and a comprehensive nationwide carriculum on sexual health (which, in the UK, is not present) should be given a very high priority indeed.

Thank you again, I appreciate your time.