Worrying about getting HIV infected from a clinic

[never_say_die]

Hi there,

First of all, please forgive my poor English, since I am not a native speaker.

I went to a clinic for a HIV test yesterday and got a Negative result today, which is of course a good result for me. However, what I am worrying about is as follows:

When the nurse took blood from me, she did not wear any medical glove, and she got some iodine from a bottle and then put the iodine onto the skin of my left arm and daubed it on my skin with her naked finger. Then, she took blood from me with a syringe, which is maybe a one-use-only syringe.

Now I am worrying about getting some blood on my needle wound from the naked finger of the nurse and thus getting HIV infected, since if the nurse never wore gloves during her medical operations to the AIDS patients or potential patients, she might be infected when she got a wound on her finger. The sanitation condition in this clinic looks just ok but not very good (of course, the entire sanitation condition in hospitals and clinics in our country is worse than those developed countries like United States).

My question is that: let’s consider a case (might be more serious than my actual case) in which the nurse use her naked finger with a wound covered by blood to put the iodine on my skin and daub it, and then she penetrates my skin with the syringe and takes the blood out, can I get HIV infected on my tiny needle wound from her blood on my skin? although she gets my blood “out” from me on the needle wound but not put something “into” the wound.

Maybe the above question is stupid for someone, but it is extremely important to me and I am really very very worried about it. So can you please consider the worst case and answer the question? Thank you very much!!

Sincerely yours,

Amber

[nursegirl6572]

I can assure you that you were not at ANY risk whatsoever.  Nurses, and other health care workers PRIMARILY use gloves to protect themselves.  

Now, while her technique wasn't the most optimal, it didn't place you at risk....number one being b/c she used iodine to clean your skin with before drawing your blood.  That would have killed anything present on your skin, and on the nurse's finger.

Second....you didn't SEE anything on the nurse's finger, therefore you cannot assume it was there!  Even if she HAD been in contact with HIV + blood, the virus is rendered inactive and incapable of transmitting the disease when outisde of the body.  Also, the amount of blood that would be needed for a theoretical "blood to blood" exposure...you wouldn't have missed it.  Both you and the nurse would have to have huge open gaping hemorrhaging wounds, which you didn't.

And, the needle was not re-used, so let's not go down that road.  That is just not possible.

You have NOTHING to worry about.

[never_say_die]

Hi Teak, thank you very much for your answer. But can you please take more time to explain to me why my case is a safe one? Is it because my tiny needle wound is so tiny that no enough amount of blood of the nurse can come into my blood vessel? Or other reason?

[Teak]

HIV is not transmitted in that manner.