HIV-Positive Criminals are Lurking, Ready to Stab Victims with Injections

There is a popular urban legend, which has been around for some time, which recounts the tale of someone innocent being infected unknowingly by a cruel and ruthless HIV-positive person, out of sheer spite.

Different versions of this legend have a friend of a friend (or someone equally faceless yet seemingly close) being infected by a needle pinprick inflicted by an unknown assailant while innocuously walking on a street or sitting in a movie theatre, for more details see About Urban Legends.com. Another version of it has a man or woman enjoying a one-night-stand with someone they meet in a bar, only to be met by an empty bed and a note next morning, which reads, “Welcome to the world of AIDS!”

In fact, about 90% of HIV-infections are caused by unprotected heterosexual sex. Mother-to-child-transmission (MTCT) is statistically the next biggest cause of HIV-infection, while transmission by blood transfusion is miniscule in comparison. Transmission by any type of needle-stick injury is statistically negligible. However, doctors, other health-care professionals such as dentists and others who are mistakenly pierced by needles potentially infected with HIV-positive blood can, like rape victims, undergo a short course of emergency ARV-treatment as soon after the incident as possible. This emergency treatment reduces the chance of infection significantly.

In a 1997 Centers for Disease Control study of needlestick injuries to health-care workers, “the prompt initiation of zidovudine was associated with an 81% decrease in the risk for acquiring HIV”.

See the Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) section in the Journ-AIDS Prevention Factsheet for more details on this.