Scared of unknowingly getting infected?

“A 10 year old boy, had eaten pineapple about 15 days back, and fell sick, from the day he had eaten. Later when he had his health check done... doctors diagnosed that he had AIDS. His parents couldn't believe it... Then the entire family underwent a check-up... none of them suffered from Aids. So the doctors checked again with the boy if he had eaten out...The boy said "yes". He had pineapple that evening. Immediately a group from Malaya Hospital went to the pineapple vendor to check. They found the pineapple seller had a cut on his finger while cutting the pineapple, his blood had spread into the fruit. When they had his blood checked...the guy was suffering from AIDS..... but he himself was NOT aware. Unfortunately the boy is suffering from it now. Please take care while you eat on the road side. Please forward this mail to your dear one.”

Have you ever received forwarded emails with contents of the above nature? If you have received such emails, have you ever forwarded them to anyone else?

Actually I saw the above posted in a blog, and this morning a blog reader forwarded the email to me. She suspected it was a hoax, but was not confident enough to reply to the forwarded email to say that it was indeed a hoax. So she sought my clarification before she dared reply to the sender and everyone else on the recipient’s list.

The above forwarded email has been in circulation for quite some time. And people kept on forwarding to all and sundry without checking its authenticity. Better to be safe than sorry, they say. I wonder… how come nobody asked about “Malaya Hospital”? Can anybody tell me where that is?

Other than this pineapple story, there is also another email about HIV infected needles being left on cinema seats on purpose so that those who sit on them will get infected. And oh… in vending machine coin returns too…

I usually concentrate on stories of HIV infected persons in this blog, touching more on the human aspect of it. My blog don’t usually touch detailed HIV facts. I don’t make it a habit to touch on the technical or medical aspects for fear of boring my readers to tears. Let the experts do that. Uh… no, I didn’t mean let the experts bore you to tears… I meant let them explain on the technical/medical aspect lah :)

I would like to make it an exception this time. While I’m still not going into too much detail, I would just like to touch a bit on the topic of HIV myths, which indirectly means I may have to include some facts as well. Well yeah, I can simply put the link here for you all to read for yourselves, but chances are many of you won’t do that. So let me just share with you some of the facts I got from the Malaysian AIDS Council website.

First, on the topic of getting infected through food, including pineapples, prepared or cut by infected persons.

If you have the slightest fear that the virus can spread this way, then your safest bet will be to not eat outside food. After all, how can you be so sure that the food you bought was not prepared by an infected person, huh?

The fact is - HIV is unable to survive outside its living host – humans. It does not spread or maintain its infectiousness outside its host. So, whether it is mixed in sauce or ketchup or pineapples, the virus will die. DON’T WORRY!

Next, on the topic of HIV spreading through needles being left on cinema seats or vending machine coin returns.

Think about it. How small is a needle head? And how much blood can be found on a needle head? The logic (and fact) behind infection through needles is when it is used together with a syringe. When you inject drugs or tattoo or pierce, some of your blood gets drawn into the syringe. And when another person reuses the same syringe and needle, the contaminated blood gets straight into this other person’s blood stream.

For HIV infection to occur, a great amount of HIV concentration needs to be directly allowed access into your body. When exposed to air, the virus weakens and dies – all within a time frame of 2 minutes!

Some of you may ask: what about mosquito bites?

Whoa… if HIV could spread through mosquito bites, imagine how many more people would be infected by now!

When an insect bites a person, it does not inject its own or a previous victim's blood into the new victim. Rather, it injects saliva. Such diseases as yellow fever and malaria are transmitted through the saliva of specific species of mosquitoes. However, unlike organisms that are transmitted via insect bites, HIV does not reproduce (and, therefore, cannot survive) in insects. Thus, even if the virus enters a mosquito or another sucking or biting insect, the insect does not become infected and cannot transmit HIV to the next human it feeds on or bites. There is also no reason to fear that a biting or blood-sucking insect, such as a mosquito, could transmit HIV from one person to another through HIV-infected blood left on its mouth parts. Two factors combine to make infection by this route extremely unlikely -- first, infected people do not have constant, high levels of HIV in their bloodstreams and, second, insect mouth parts do not retain large amounts of blood on their surfaces

Just remember, for infection to occur, three things must happen:

1.You must be exposed to pre-cum, semen, vaginal secretions, blood or breast milk
2.The virus must get directly into your bloodstream through some fresh cut, open sore, abrasion etc.
3.Transmission must occur, directly from one person to the other, very quickly (the virus does not survive more than a few minutes outside the body).

So the next time you get a forwarded email which says HIV spreads through ways and means which doesn’t involve the above 3 things mentioned, please do not simply forward it to all your acquaintances.

What’s that? No harm done you say? Well, no harm to you maybe if you keep on forwarding the myths. But imagine if everybody believed the myths, people will be afraid to come anywhere near an HIV positive person! How on earth then, are they supposed to make a living? All the stigma and discrimination will never end if we keep on spreading these myths.

From my postings, you would have noticed that I have confidently eaten food prepared by HIV infected persons, I have touched them, hugged them, even carried them in my car. If I had the slightest fear that the forwarded emails were in any way true, I wouldn’t have dared do any of those.

And while I previously used to get fever or at least some sort of flu almost every month, believe me, ever since I got myself involved in this HIV voluntary work, I seldom get sick. Honest! Somehow God has given me extra energy to carry out my voluntary work.

Maybe it’s because I enjoy what I do (it’s hard to enjoy my office work!). Or maybe it’s the prayer from all the PLWHAs whom I have helped. Or maybe it’s a combination of everything.

Just give the PLWHAs a break, will you? Please?

Now if you don’t mind, I wanna go google for “Malaya Hospital”… I need to find out where that is… ;)