[Question #9502] Chances of possible transmission

32 months ago

Dear sir,

I have few incidences which I thought might be risky.

1. I was travelling in air India economy class. The earphones provided by the flight were packed in an envolope. It looked like some liquid had fallen on to the paper envolope in which the earphones were placed. It look like the liquid might be tea or coffee or something similar. Can that liquid penetrate the earphones? I wonder someone got hurt in the airplane and few drops of blood feel on the envolope, can it infect the earphones, because I used those earphones without disinfecting it. And the envelope paper looked wet so it seemed to be the event happened couple of minutes ago. Am I at risk of hiv ? Do I need testing?

2. I have heard that diabetic needles are allowed in the plane. Now the person sitting next to me had broken sit and I tried to pull it back a couple of times but I failed. That process was quite painful. However, now I think that if the previous passenger has thrown dirty needle beneath the airplane seat, though I didn’t bother to look beneath the broken airplane seat, I didn’t saw any blood in my hand, but I wonder there are needle stick injury happening without blood. The flight was 12 hours and almost 6-7 hours had passed whilst this incident took place. Am I at risk ? Do i need testing?

32 months ago

3. I was walking on a street in Melbourne and was approached by a skincare shopkeeper. He started to apply a serum on the top of my hand by rubbing the serum. I didn’t asked to sanitise his hand and I didn’t even bother to notice if there was any wound or blood on his hand. If there was blood on his hand, and if he rubbed with those dirty hand, can it cause hiv? Because I had tiny scratch marks on that area which were healed but there was brown layer of healing on it.

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

32 months ago

These situations simply reflect your very abnormal and irrational fears about HIV. There is no possibility of HIV transmission from any of these events. If you do not have sex or share drug injection equipment with other persons, you will never be at risk for HIV. Believe it. You also should consider professional mental health counseling. These thoughts are entirely irrational and imply an underlying psychological health issue that would beneift from professional care. I suggest it from compassion, not criticism.

This is your fourth question on the forum, all reflecing the same irrational fears of HIV transmission. The forum does not permit repeated anxiety driven questions on the same topic, so this must be your last one; future questions along these lines will be deleted without reply and without refund of the posting fee. As for my comment about counseling, this policy is based on compassion, not criticism, and is designed to reduce temptations to repeatedly pay for questions with obvious answers. In addition, experience shows that continued answers tends to simply prolong such anxieties, when the real answer normally should be professional counseling. Finally, such questions have little educational value for other users, one of the forum's main purposes. I trust you will understand.

Best wishes to you.

HHH, MD

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