[Question #11431] Hospital exposure

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14 months ago
Hi there doctors,
To start off I have already contacted occupational health at my workplace and they were not concerned about this exposure but I would really appreciate your perspective. I work with seniors, and while providing care to one of my patients I wet a cloth in a sink to which they used to clean their genitalia, they then started whipping the cloth around which caused a droplet of liquid on the cloth to land in my eye. I immediately flushed my eye at the eyewash station and have been working with occ heath. I am so concerned about HIV, which I know isnt the most rationale but I can’t help it my anxiety over the situation seems to be getting the best of me. Also, we occasionally use the sink to rinse previously soiled clothes do you think that the cloth touching the sink would have also had my impact? 
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
14 months ago
Welcome and thanks for your confidence in our forum. I was logged in when your question arrived, therefore the nearly real-time reply. Most users aren't that lucky!

I agree with the advice from occupational health. The chance such a person has HIV is very low, and even if s/he did, this event could not have infected you. (Which you know, intellectually if not emotionally, indicated by "I know isn't the most rational".) The contact of the cloth with the sink also doesn't increase risk. Nobody in the world ever caught HIV from contact with the virus in the environment, or from such non-intimate contact as this event. Please don't worry about it!

I hope these comments are helpful. Best wishes to you.

HHH, MD
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14 months ago
Thank you so much Dr. Handsfield,
One more thing, I chose not pursue PEP do you think this was a wise decision? 
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
14 months ago
Yes. PEP definitely was not necessary. It should not even have been offered to you as an option.---
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14 months ago
Thank you so much Dr. Handsfield. I wanted to use my last follow-up to touch on one more irrational worry. A droplet from the cloth also landed on my eyebrow area, which I wiped away with my shirt. Soon after, I wiped the corner of my mouth with the same area of my shirt. I am concerned as I had some open pimples in that corner of my mouth. Is there any concern from the using the same area of the shirt that could have absorbed urine/vaginal secretions from the droplet?  
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
14 months ago
Of course this is no higher risk than the original non-exposure event described. HIV is simply never transmitted other than by very intimate contact. There has never been a case of HIV transmitted by contact other than intimate, i.e. sex, needle sharing for drug use, etc.

As you anticipated, that concludes this thread. I hope the discussion has been helpful to you. Best wishes.
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