Will a condom protect me from getting HIV and the AIDS virus?   

• Used correctly, a condom will protect you from contracting HIV.  

• A condom and Femidon are two barriers available to prevent the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, during sexual intercourse.

• Abstinence provides you with the most protection.

Is deep kissing a route of HIV transmission?

• Deep or open-mouthed kissing is a very low risk activity in terms of HIV transmission. 

• There has been only one documented case of someone becoming infected with HIV through kissing; a result of exposure to infected blood through open mouthed kissing.  

• If you or your partner has open wounds in your mouth, you should avoid kissing until the wound has healed.

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Can I become infected with HIV through normal social contact or activities such as shaking hands, kissing, using toilet seats and swimming pools, sharing cutlery, or exposure to sneezes and coughs?   

• No. This is because HIV is not an air-borne, water – borne or food-borne virus.  

• Therefore ordinary social contact such as cheek kissing, shaking hands, coughing and sharing cutlery does not result in the virus being passed from one person to another.

How can you determine if someone has HIV?

The only way to ascertain if you are infected with HIV is to have a test for HIV.
 

How long can HIV survive outside the human body? 

• Generally the fragile nature of the virus prevents it from surviving for a substantial amount of time in the open air. The length of time HIV can survive outside the body is dependent on the amount of HIV present in the body fluid and the conditions the fluid might be subjected to.  

• Note that HIV is fragile and many common substances such as hot liquid, soap, bleach, alcohol, and the gastric juices found within your stomach can destroy the virus.  

• The studies on the survival of HIV outside the body have been conducted in the laboratory under controlled scientific conditions. These studies found HIV to be inactivated by heat.

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Is there a risk of HIV transmission when having a tattoo, during body piercing or while visiting the barber or hairdresser?   

• When visiting the barber there is no risk of infection unless the skin is cut (which may occur if the barber accidentally cuts you) and if there is a transfer of infected blood.  

• If the instruments are contaminated with infected blood and are not sterilised between clients there is a risk of HIV transmission.  

• To reduce the risk of blood-borne infections such as hepatitis and HIV ensure that the razor / instruments used are new or have been properly sterilised.  

• However, people who carry out body piercing, tattoos, or hairdressing should follow procedures called “universal precautions”, which are designed to prevent the transmission of blood-borne infections such as HIV and hepatitis B.

What are Universal Precautions?   

• These are a set of guidelines that were designed to protect both workers and their customers from HIV and other blood-borne illnesses such as hepatitis.  

• The guidelines state that any instrument designed to penetrate the skin as tattoo or acupuncture needled either should be used only once and discarded, or should be thoroughly cleaned and sterilised after each use.

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Can I get HIV from a mosquito?   

• No, it is not possible to get HIV from mosquitoes or other biting and blood-sucking insects. The results of experiments and observations of insect-biting behaviour indicate that when an insect bites a human, it does not inject its own or previously bitten person’s blood into the next bitten person. Rather, it injects saliva, which acts as a lubricant so the insect can feed efficiently.  

• Diseases such as yellow fever and malaria are transmitted through the saliva or specific species of mosquitoes. However, HIV lives for only a short time inside an insect. Unlike organisms that are transmitted via insect bites, HIV does not reproduce nor survive in insects. Thus, even if the virus enters a mosquito or another insect, the insect does not become infected and cannot transmit HIV to the next human it bites.