I am aware of no instances in which HIV has been acquired from exposures in a barbershop – either from the scissors, from electric clippers, or from having one’s back shaved as part of care in the barbershop. There are many reasons for this. One is that most barbers do a good job of cleaning their equipment. A second reason is that most people do not have HIV so the likelihood that the equipment used to address your barbering needs was contaminated with HIV by the person whose barbering is very, very low - certainly less than 1%.  Finally and perhaps, most importantly, HIV becomes non-infectious virtually immediately on exposure to the environment.  For all of these reasons, neither experts, nor Expert organization, such as the WHO, or CDC have suggested that there is a risk of acquiring HIV from receiving services from a barbershop.

 HIV is transmitted only through direct, sexual penetrative, sexual contact, or injection of infected material deep into tissue. Touching a contaminated surface or being scratched, while sometimes mentioned as theoretical risk, in fact does not lead to HIV acquisition.

I would hope that with the passage of time since your false positive, your concerns about acquiring HIV from the activities of daily living will diminish. Professional counseling might be helpful in accomplishing this as well. Finally, I urge you to stay off the Internet in researching your fears. The Internet Is full of misinformation, and it is very difficult to determine what sort of statements made there are true, and which are not. All too many worrisome statements found on the Internet represent statements that are taken out of context, are out of date, or simply represent misinformation.  EWH

HIV becomes non-infectious upon contact with the environment outside of the body virtually immediately

Scratches do not transmit HIV. Infectious material must be injected deep in the tissue.

Please don’t worry. EWH