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Expert: - 5/4/2009


Question
Hi,

I am extremely tense about an incident and am worrying myself to sickness. I had an exposure about one month ago and am waiting for the three month mark to get tested. But this post is not about that incident. Whatever the result be, I know I have some friends whom I can count on and they'll help me get through.

I have already been too tense during the past one month and now the following incident happened:

I was sorting a pile of documents with my mother. Many of those documents had pins attached with them (the long ones and not staple pins). After doing this for a couple of minutes, I saw that there were two minute red spots on my fingers. It is liekly that I got myself stung by one of those pins while handling the papers.

The two red sopts were extremely small, like two dot marks. The skin appeared to be broken and I would feel some pain when I rubbed those spots. However, I did not see any blood and I also did not notice when I stung myself.

I was handing over the papers to my mother and it is possible that she also stung herself with the same pins almost immediately after I stung myself.

Have I put my mother at risk? Sorry, I know that there are many "what if's" here but I am really worried about my mother.


Answer
Hello 'Concerned'!

Hope you're doing fine. I have to use many "if"s to answer your question, sorry for that.

Even though if you are HIV+, if blood dripped on the papers, if your mother had open wounds or bleeding cuts on her hands, and if she's in direct contact with that blood ... there's no possibility of HIV transmission in the context you described.

Keep well. Sorry for being late.

Best regards,
Gorkey

AIDS

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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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