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Expert: - 1/12/2012


Question
I was on class duty and when I went to clean the sponges, I accidentally dropped one into the toilet. Disgusting as it may seem, i actually used my hand to get it out. I washed the sponge and my hands with water and then went back to class. Afterwards, one of my classmates went to the blackboard and used exactly that sponge and I don't know if she washed her hands afterwards. I was to ashamed of telling her what happened.
Now my question is: is it possible for her to have caught HIV because of it? I didn't flush the toilet before, and they aren't really that clean. I know one can't get HIV from urine, but what if there was menstruation or even sperm in there? I also didn't see my classmate's hands, I don't know if they had any cuts on them or something like that.
So is such a thing possible?

Thank you!

Answer
Dear Andreea,

You are absolutely right about the fact that HIV does not transmit through urine. HIV need direct bodily contact in order to get transmitted.

In your case, there is no possibility of HIV transmission in the way you mentioned. Basically three reasons:

1. It requires direct contact (e.g. unprotected sex, needle sharing, mother to child transmission etc.) with bodily fluids (e.g. blood, semen, vaginal fluid etc.) of an HIV infected person for HIV transmission,
2. HIV is a very fragile virus which lives very short period outside receptor. HIV requires living cells to persist - so exposure to air will typically result in cell death. That is, as soon as the HIV is no longer in the context of a body fluid, it is extremely fragile or weak,
3. In a area like toilet, even blood is present, the viral load will be too low to infect some. Viral load means the concentration of a virus, such as HIV, in the blood.

So, don't worry. In case of further clarification, please feel free to communicate.

Sorry for my delayed response.

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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