Question I recently had a procedure done at my Doctor's office to test I had sensory in my legs, the procedure consisted of her poking my legs with a small needle device, I didn't see it, I heard a package open.
After it was all done I got to thinking that I didn't pay enough attention to what she was doing, it felt like a mosquito bite when she poked and I only noticed a mark, but it got me to wondering, if AIDS could be passed like this AND if Aids has ever been passed in a clinical setting in the United States?
Thanks for any information you can give me.
AnswerShe must have used a prepackaged, one-time use, disposable sterile syringe with needle tip. These are never reused from patient to patient. They are incinerated in the biohazard waste containers. You can rest assured they are not used from patient to patient. They don't withstand autoclaving or reuse. If they are only used on you, you cannot get HIV/AIDS this way.
HIV/AIDS certainly has been passed in a clinical setting in the united states, but the health care worker is at much greater risk of contracting HIV from the patient than the patient is from the health care worker. The typical mode of transmission is from patient's blood droplets to the health care worker's blood. This happens when nurses/doctors accidentally poke themselves with the same needle they used to draw blood from the patient, or cut themselves on a glass test tube with patient's infected blood in it. It has to be a non-superficial, deep puncture with enough blood in the syringe to infect the health care worker. Blood flicked in the eye or mucous membranes from patient to health care worker could pass HIV/AIDS also.
Retrospective studies in Britain have shown no cases of Health Care Worker to Patient transmission of HIV. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control in 1987, then in 1995, demonstrated in two studies following up on patients of HIV positive health care workers no known transmission of HIV from an HIV infected health care worker to a patient. As of 1991, the only American patients known to be infected by a health care worker were 5 patients of the same Florida dentist, according to the CDC. In Australia, they estimate (as of 1996) that a total of six patients may have been infected in the health care setting.
So, you run zero risk if it was a prepackaged sterile needle, and almost no risk under any other circumstances, getting any kind of procedure in a health care setting.
Rest easy,
Maggie Smith, RN, MSN
