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AIDS/HIV risk from fesh blood on food

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Expert: - 3/25/2009


Question
I had an encounter last week that has scared me a lot. I visited one of my relatives who is HIV+.
She was cooking food for us. While preparing the food she cut the index finger of her right hand with a knife and started bleeding. She sucked the blood with her mouth and continued preparing the food.

She then proceeded to make a bread Sandwhich. She was toasting the sandwhich in a frying pan and she used her right hand many times to flip the Sandwhich. She then put it on a plate and offered me. I did not think much of it and ate the Sandwhiches (about 4 in all).

Earlier that day I had peeled off some of the skin from my lips with my teeth(I think it also bled a little) and they were hurting. I do not know why I started thinking about this incident, but the more I think about it the more worried I become. I am worried because there is a good probability that fresh blood could have come in contact with the Sanwhich and I ate it almost immediately afterwards. And then again, the skin on my lips was hurting.

Please help me with this scenario and whether I should test for this and pardon me if I seem to be rude.
Thanks for helping me.

Answer
Hello Peace J!

Of course you are not asking a rude question. We are here to find solutions to our questions, curiosities ... there's nothing rude here.

Let's come back to your question. HIV lives for a very short time (few seconds only) outside or without receptor. And sandwich does not fall in this category. Therefore nothing to worry about, HIV won't transmit this way.

You can consult a specialist for your problems with skin and lips, those can be due to other reasons.

Sincere regards,
Gorkey

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Gorkey Gourab

Expertise

Social and behavioral issues related to HIV transmission, sexually transmitted infections, Human Rights issues, rights of marginalized populations, gender and sexuality, research design and analysis related social & behavioral issues, , computer assisted qualitative data analysis and data management (using ATLAS.ti, ANTHROPAC, NVivo 8)

Experience

Specialized in Medical Anthropology. Working on Social and behavioral studies related to HIV transmission as well as Human Rights issues. Specialization in gender, sexuality, masculinity, behavioral studies related to HIV transmission. Qualitative research, programmatic and M&E experience with MSM, hijra (TG), indigenous groups, female sex workers for more than 7 years.

Organizations
International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) as Manager - M&E (Qualitative) with Center for HIV and AIDS

Publications
International peer-reviewed journals & technical papers: (1) Khan, S. I., Hussain, M. I., Parveen, S., Bhuiyan, M. I., Gourab, G., & Bhuiya, A. (2009). Living on the extreme margin: Social exclusion of the hijra in Bangladesh. Journal of health, population and nutrition. (2) Khan, S. I., Hussain, M. I., Gourab, G., Parveen, S., Bhuiyan, M. I., & Sikder, J. (2008). Not to stigmatize but to humanize sexual lives of the transgender (hijra): condom chat in the AIDS era. Journal of LGBT Health Research (Special issue: issues on male sexual behaviors and HIV risk in South Asia). Working papers: (1) Khan, S. I., Gourab, G., Ahmed, T., Sarker, G. F., Chowdhury, F. K., Ghosh, S., et al. (2009). Understanding the operational dynamics and possible HIV interventions for residence-based female sex workers in two divisional cities in Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh: NASP, Save the Children USA and icddr,b. Presentations in scientific meetings and conferences: (1) Khan, S. I., Hussain, M. I., Gourab, G. & Azim, T. (2011, 16 March 2011). Use of a new approach to count and access diverse groups of hijra for scaling up HIV-preventions services in Bangladesh. Poster presented at the 13th Annual Scientific Conference (ASCON XIII), Dhaka. (2) Khan, S. I., Pasa, K., Gourab, G., & Islam, A. (2007). Indigenous populations of Bangladesh: Living with risks and vulnerabilities to STIs/HIV. 8th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP). Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Education/Credentials
MSS (Anthropology), University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh

Awards and Honors
The Vanderbilt-UAB Fogarty International Center AIDS International Training and Research Program (AITRP)Scholarship for the training on HIV-AIDS related qualitative data analysis and manuscript writing (Center for Global Health, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA)

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