fsuatl25 asked:
I jsut got a new job taking care of mentally retarded individuals and their is one ind who has HIv and is also a biter, scratcher and spitter. What are the chances of any of these actually infecting me and how could I prevent it? Long sleeve shirt? etc. also he is taking protease inhibitors does that mean he cannot spread the virus to other people? I hate to sound ignorant, but I really am not sure. Thank you, also we do have to escort him to timeouts, do prone procedures on him, etc which is when you lay him down with him kicking and scratching untill he calms down.
Question about Hiv, how it spreads and protease inhibitors?
February 14th, 2010 | Escorts
5 comments ↓
Find Another Job.. i don’t trust that one..
Wearing log sleeves is a good idea. Spitting isn’t a real risk. If he is on treatment and has low or undetectable viral load the risk is lessened. To become infected his blood and yours need to come into contact
First of all, they are not called “mentally retarded”.
That word went out about 20 years ago.
They are called ” Developmentally Delayed”.
I’d wear gloves , a long sleeved shirt etc.See what the other staff wears.
A protease slows the growth of the virus in the infected person. It does not help you.
I would say that since this individual is HIV+ and prone to biting that wearing a long sleeve shirt might be a good idea.
HIV is only spread through blood to blood contact and there is very little in the saliva. Protease inhibitors may slow down the production of the virus, but it is not a cure and it is still in the blood.
If he spits or scratches you there is little chance if any of getting it–
If he bits you and breaks the skin drawing blood there is still only a minute chance of getting it.
First I will answer this question as if the patient is not on chemotherapy at all. The chances of you becoming infected are close to 0, which is NOT to say they are nothing. Most other posters have correctly stated that you cannot contract the virus through saliva which is true if you are kissing this individual. The HIV virus does not live for more than a second or two outside of the body (your mouth is considered an exterior space) and any of the virus that reaches your mouth is destroyed by your host defense systems. However, if the HIV+ individual bites deeply enough (enough to puncture skin and hit a major vein or artery) there is a small chance you can contract the virus this way and wearing a long sleeve shirt may reduce the severity of the bite. Scratching and spitting aren’t of any real concern, unless the scratch is deep enough to draw a large amount of blood, and this individual has an open wound on their fingers at the time in which case chances are slightly elevated. Now, assuming this person is being treated according to current and best practice guidelines, their viral load is considered ‘undetectable’ in plasma meaning it is generally less that 50-70 copies of the virus per milliliter. That number only exists because that is the lower limit current assays can detect. It is frequently assumed (though unproven by precise enough tests) that the number is closer to 0 if this person is on double or triple drug therapy. Now why, you might ask, is HIV an incurable disease then? To that I answer because, like it’s cousin the herpes virus, HIV can sequester itself in other spaces (nerve ganglia most notably), and if this person were to discontinue their drug therapy the virus would then re-proliferate into the blood causing an acute HIV infection. But I digress. The bottom line is that no one can give you a solid answer on this question because that person would not have any well performed, double blind, placebo controlled studies to back their answer up because, well, that would be pretty damn unethical. Wearing a long sleeve shirt, as I said before, may possibly reduce the impact of a severe bite which may bring you peace of mind ultimately helping you deliver more compassionate care to this patient.
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