[Question #7130] Blood concerns and sti questions

61 months ago

Hi drs

Three questions

1)If come to contact with a used condom in environment and step on it or touch it by mistake is that a risk for stds?

2)If I get blood from someone on my hands is that a risk of hiv or hep c or any other blood diseases? Especially if I can’t wash right away and touch my things or eat something or go to the bathroom and touch my privates. Or if I also have a bloody cut on hands and blood gets into it.

3)If I come into contact with used towels or dirty underwear dirty laundry etc is that a concern for stds? Or if someone doesn’t wash after bathroom or sex and then touches you and you go to the bathroom or eat or out hands in mouth. Or they don’t wash after bathroom and and then change a baby diaper or if they handle their dirty Laundry and then hold my kids without washing their hands first. I don’t know if it makes a difference if the contact happens Immediately after they go to bathroom handling dirty Laundry etc or not (Question 3 is because someone is living with us and helping with my children and it’s making me nervous for myself and for my kids)

I feel like from the answers you have provided to others on your site the answers would be no since these aren’t direct genital to genital contact nor sharing needles among drug users.

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

61 months ago

Welcome back to the forum. I'll be responding this time, but I scanned your previous discussion with Dr. Hook. Actually, we have answered many questions about nonsexual exposures to STDs and blood borne infections -- but we acknowledge that the search function on this forum is rudimentary, and other discussions can be hard to find. In any case, your own questions and concerns are not unusual.

I'll start with a general comment and observation. Both this question and your previous ones indicate you are quite worried about nonsexual acquisition of STDs and blood-borne infections. The fact is that even the world's busiest and most expert STD and HIV/AIDS clinics, with thousands of patients a year, never see infected persons who don't have traditional, well established high risk exposures. Whenever someone initiall believes they had no high risk exposures, or suspects such events as exposure in the environment (or in a doctor's office), it always turns out they were wrong. Usually it's bedause they have had high riske xposures they didn't recognize at the time, e.g. with a partner who, unknown to them, was say bisexual, an injection drug user, etc. I'll add that from the earliest days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, it was possiblet to assure the public that there is no risk of HIV infection (or other blood borne infections) by non-sexual, non-blood-sharing contact with other persons.

So in brief summary, there has never been a single known case of HIV, epatitis C, hep B, or STDs acquired by the sorts of events you describe in this question. Those comments pretty well cover your specific questions, but to be explicit:

1) Stepping on or otherwise contacting a used condom is risk free. There has also never been a known case of infection acquired by stepping on or otherewise being exposed to used drug injection needles -- despite all the internet warning and perhaps news stories about such theoretical risks.

2) If you had a fresh cut that was actively bleeding, and that wound came into direct contact with fresh, wet blood of someone with HIV or viral hepaptits, theire might be some risk. Howeer, other than pretty massive exposure of this sort -- for example, while providing emergency help to an auto accident or gunshot victim, the kinds of exposure you describe simply are no concern.

3) This also is zero risk for HIV or other STDs. Of course you should use common sense hygiene when using public toilets or otherwise in contact with non-laundered personal clothing or towels used by other persons. But even there, the main risk from such exposure is common colds, influenza, and now COVID -- but not STDs or blood borne infections. Use common sense hygiene in your home and in your personall relations with the person sharing your home. Nobody ever catches STDs from household members unless they are sex partners -- no matter now often they share toilets, kitches, etc.

I hope these comments are helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

HHH, MD

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61 months ago

1.) so just to clarify coming into contact with a used condom or any other object in the environment that may have semen or vaginal fluid or other body fluids into it and not washing hands(especially if I don’t know there may be body fluids on it) poses no risk if I then go to the bathroom or eat or do anything?

2.) having a small superficial cut would pose no risk even if actively bleeding?

3.) so even if a person has vaginal fluids or semen or other fluids on them from their dirty laundry or not washing their hands after going to the bathroom or having sex it wouldn’t matter in terms of them touching and interacting with me and my kids or feeding them or changing their diapers even if they got the fluids on them immediately before changing my kids diaper or something?

I just worry if they go to the bathroom And don’t wash their hands and immediately go to the kids diaper if they haven’t washed their Hands ?

I feel like if the diaper change (or interaction) happens Immediately after they come out of the bathroom it would pose a risk? Yet I’ve read that you have said the the only way to get a Sti is through direct sexual contact? Does the fact that the fluid is not inside of the body mean that it is no longer infectious even if it has only been a few seconds? I’m just really worried about my kids getting something from someone especially since I know hpv is very common (especially the high risk hpv which I have had in the past)

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

61 months ago

1) Yes, you correctly understand.

2) Also correct. See my comment about a brand new, actively bleeding wound. This might be risky, but is not known to have ever happened.

3) Also true.

Certain infections are called "sexually transmitted" for good reason. They are not just infections that happen to involve the genital area. The bacteria and viruses that cause them evolved to require sex itsealf for transmission. LOTS of bacteria or virus must contact certain cells that are deep inside the body; or they need to enter open, freshly bleeding wounds. People who live the the same homes of people with HIV, heptatitis B, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, genital herpes, or HPV NEVER become infected, even after years and years of shaing toilets, kitchens, eating utensils, laundry, towel, showers, etc, etc with the infected person (assuming they aren't also sex partners of that person). This is true even in very unhygienic households, e.g. in tropic African homes without running water. If you don't have sex with an infected person, you and your kids will never catch any of them. Please do your best to understand and believe all this and stop worrying about it.

Of course standard hygiene is recommended, and you and your kids should wash your hads with soap and water afer using the toilet. But the reason for this standard recommendation is NOT to prevent STDs or blood borne infections. It's to protect against other infections that are much easiter to transmit, like colds, flu, viral gastroenteritis -- and now, COVID-19. But none of this makes any difference at all in STD risk.

Got it?

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