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Other Facts about HIV
HIV is a virus that infects people by getting inside their blood cells. To avoid getting HIV, you must prevent the blood, semen, vaginal fluids, or breast milk of someone who is infected from entering your body through your mouth, vagina, anus, tip of your penis, or breaks in your skin.
The primary ways HIV is transmitted are:
- Unprotected sexual contact with an infected person, such as - receiving and giving anal sex, receiving and giving vaginal sex, giving and receiving oral sex.
- From an infected mother to child during pregnancy, during birth or shortly after birth while breastfeeding.
- Sharing needles or syringes (primarily for drug injection) with someone who is infected.
- Through transfusions of infected blood or blood products (and now very rarely in countries where blood is screened for HIV antibodies).
Ways HIV cannot be transmitted
HIV is not an air-borne, water-borne or food-borne virus. As such HIV cannot be passed from one person to another by:
- Normal social contact or activities such as shaking hands, touching or hugging, kissing, massage, sitting next to someone, playing sports, or exposure to sneezes and coughs.
- Using toilet seats and urinals, bathtubs and showers, bathroom sinks, furniture, clothing and towels, sharing cutlery, glasses, cups and dishes, kitchen utensils, telephones, office equipment, water fountains, books, magazines, mail, pens and pencils, exercise equipment, and swimming pools.
- HIV is also not transmitted by giving blood, saliva, tears, sweat, faeces, urine, or insect bites.
The virus lives only briefly outside the body and can't be passed through unbroken skin. It isn't transferred through air or water. You won't get HIV from merely living with an infected person. Children will not get HIV by sitting next to or having recess with an infected child. It's also safe to donate blood at your local blood bank. Each time blood is taken a sterile, new needle is used.
You should not be afraid to help someone who has HIV as long as precautions are taken (rubber gloves, cleaning solutions, etc.) and no bodily fluids are transmitted.
Can mosquitoes transmit AIDS?
The HIV virus that produces AIDS in humans does not develop in mosquitoes. If HIV infected blood is taken up by a mosquito the virus is treated like food and digested along with the blood meal.
If the mosquito takes a partial blood meal from an HIV positive person and resumes feeding on a non-infected individual, insufficient particles are transferred to initiate a new infection. If a fully engorged mosquito with HIV positive blood is squashed on the skin, there would be insufficient transfer of virus to produce infection.
The virus diseases that use insects as agents of transfer produce tremendously high levels of parasites in the blood. The levels of HIV that circulate in human blood are so low that HIV antibody is used as the primary diagnosis for infection.
Can I get HIV from getting a tattoo or through body piercing?
A risk of HIV transmission does exist if instruments contaminated with blood are either not sterilized or disinfected or are used inappropriately between clients. The Centre of Disease Control (CDC) recommends that instruments that are intended to penetrate the skin be used once, then disposed of or thoroughly cleaned and sterilized between clients.
Personal service workers who do tattooing or body piercing should be educated about how HIV is transmitted and take precautions to prevent transmission of HIV and other blood-borne infections in their settings.
If you are considering getting a tattoo or having your body pierced, ask staff at the establishment what procedures they use to prevent the spread of HIV and other blood-borne infections, such as the hepatitis B virus.
