playground blood contact

[worriedgreezy]

I was at a playground with my son when a little girl fell and got a bloody lip.  I offered her mother a tissue to help clean her face.  When the mother reached for the tissue I felt her hand brush against mine.  I looked at my hand and saw some of the girls blood on my fingernail.  I wiped it off with a wet wipe and realized I have a hangnail on my thumb where the blood was.  The hangnail is small, but tender.  I'm worried, but also realize the chances of me getting HIV from this quick and small exposure is probably slim, especially considering it was the blood of a young girl.  I'm obsessing over this a bit because I am still breastfeeding my son and, as a new parent, tend to obsess about almost everything these days.  Am I at risk from this experience?

[worriedgreezy]

Thank you.  This does help.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Welcome to the HIV forum.

You can relax.  Your estimate that the risk is "probably slim" greatly overstates the risk.  There is no risk at all, assuming you are in the US or other industrialized country -- and probably no risk even if you are in a location where HIV is common in children. In industrialized countries, the likelihood any particular child has HIV is near zero; there are only a handful of such kids in the entire United States.  And even if the blood were HIV infected, such brief fleeing contact is nil. HIV is not transmitted by contact with intact skin, and even a wound has no effect unless it is deep, fresh, and bleeding. Your hagnail makes no significant difference.

Really, don't worry about this. Avoid high risk unprotected sex, and avoid injecting drugs with shared equipment. If you do these things, you will never, ever catch HIV.

I hope this helps. Best wishes--  HHH, MD