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AIDS/HIV - Blood on meat

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Expert: - 8/19/2010


Question
Hi,

I was visiting an aunt who is HIV positive.
While preparing the meal (French fries, grilled pork and salad), she cut his finger with the knife.
She was bleeding for some minutes, and then continue to make the food, with this open wound.
If she touch the fries, barbecue meat and vegetables, and there was some blood on them,
and I ate the food about 30 minutes later, can I get HIV?

Thank you.  

Answer
Hello Carmen,

Welcome to AllExperts.

The answer to your question is "no, you can't get HIV". Let us now understand why:

HIV is not a food-borne virus, and it does not live long outside the body. Even if small amounts of HIV-infected blood or semen was consumed, exposure to the air, heat from cooking, and stomach acid would destroy the virus. Therefore, there is no risk of contracting HIV from eating food. Let us go for an concrete example: No incident of food being contaminated with HIV-infected blood or semen has been reported to CDC. Furthermore, CDC has received no reports of HIV infection resulting from eating food, including condiments (CDC, 2010).

Therefore, in this context, you have nothing to worry about. So, please don’t worry.

Thanks and 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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