Hello Drs Handsfield & Hook,

Welcome to the Forum and thanks for your appreciative comments, as well as your question.  The article that you mention has been published in a highly reputable journal.  The variant HIV strain that is describes is more virulent in that once infected, untreated persons appear to have more rapid progression of their infection than persons infected with other HIV strains.  The authors actually indicate that there appear to be no clear differences in terms of the routes by which this virus was acquired however.  Nothing in this paper suggests any need to change or qualify our prior statements regarding the very, very low (close to zero) risk of acuiring HIV through shared razors, toothbrushes, etc.  I urge you not to worry that you or your family might have been infected by your ex-girlfriend IF she had shared razors, toothbrushes, etc.  ---

Great thank you so much Dr Hook that gives me much reassurance, thank you. Just one more question, my parents and siblings have been in poor health and have various ailments, am I right in thinking whatever medical conditions they had (however rare) wouldn’t change materially the realistic risk of them contracting this variant via the transmission routes I mentioned?

You are correct.  Any health issues they might have would not change their (lack of) vulnerability to infection.  EWH---