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AIDS/hiv from a bone fragment

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Expert: - 2/5/2011


Question
I know this sounds like a silly question but I would appreciate your response. The other day I was eating a gummy bear candy that I got from a bin at a store and had not been sealed. I bit down on one of the candies and something got wedged in my tooth and punctured my gum. I dug and dug and got a white hard looking material out of my tooth and am not sure I have yet gotten it all out. I was concerned this may have been a bone fragment and then I became concerned if this fragment could have come from an hiv positive person what would be the chance of me acquiring hiv as the fragment punctured my gum and part of it is  still possibly wedged in my tooth. Can a person get hiv if they are punctured by a bone fragment from an hiv person if there is no blood on the fragment? Thank you.

Answer
Hello Sandra,

You have nothing to worry about.

Because, HIV does not transmit through foods. Also, according to CDC, unlike the case where is housed within the cells of its host, in contact with the environment, HIV is fragile. At room temperature, the HIV "dies" slowly. It is destroyed at 55 ° C. It’s inactivated at low or high pH (pH of the stomach is very low, implying that the virus might be ingested with food, it is then destroyed).

Sorry for my delayed response.

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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