[Question #6520] Hiv hepatitis question
67 months ago
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67 months ago
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
67 months ago
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67 months ago
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
67 months ago
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I'll do my best to address your questions. You go into much detail and in reading your question it occurs to me that the most important part of my response it the following 3 statements:
1. There are NO proven cases in which a person has acquired HIV (and while less well studied,, hepatitis) through the sort of contamination you describe. As you point out, this is because these viruses become non-infectious upon exposure to the environment and the effects of exposure to air, to room temperature, to drying, and to other environmental factors. thus there is NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS for worrying about the sort of external contamination of needles that you describe.
2. Please understand that the reason health care providers have been encouraged to wear gloves for the past two decades or so in NOT to protect patients but to provide a theoretical protection of health care workers. Thus a ripped or torn glove is much more of a problem for a health care worker drawing your blood than for you. Further, this reasoning is largely theoretical as transmission of infections in health care settings is virtually undescribed other than in direct needlestick exposures or injection.
3. Finally, only a very few health care providers, like the general population have either transmissible HIV or hepatitis.
With regard to your specific points:
1. This unlikely circumstance has never been shown to put patients at risk for acquisition of HIV or viral hepatitis.
2a. Correct
2b. Repetitive and answered in question 1. No risk.
3. The reason the these viruses may live longer within a used needle is that they are sheltered from exposure to the environment. Exposure to the air is part but not all of the explanation. Please see explanations above.
I hope this information and reassurance is helpful. Please don't worry. Please note as well that this is my 2nd reply, thus you have just one follow-up question which will be answered. EWH
67 months ago
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
67 months ago
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Your follow-up questions are repetitive and serve no purpose. I will not use more words to say what I have already said. Sorry but that is a bit silly. If you have a straight forward yes/no question I will answer it but I cannot repeat what has already been said. The concerns you expressed in question 1 were groundless. No risk from the sort of bleeding finger you hypothesize. Pregnancy makes no difference.
The HIV viruses are not infectious following exposure to the air and again, have never been transmitted in the manner you suggest.
You have one follow-up left. EWH
67 months ago
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67 months ago
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67 months ago
|
![]() |
Edward W. Hook M.D.
67 months ago
|