Hepatitis B infection from enviromental surface?

[kaligula]

Hi guys,

I have stupid (or not :) ) question about situation my cousin had today. He went to take some blood tests (I was with him) and "interesting" situation happened. Nurse took his blood, and after taking needle out, she used some "cotton ball" (sorry for my English), put it in some alcohol "mixture" and cleaned his "needle wound". Everything was normal. But, at some point, cotton ball fell on the chair handle (place where his hand was), stayed there for second or two, she picked it up, used it again (cleaned his "wound") on the place where needle entered his hand and threw it away. After that, she used new one, put it on his "wound" and bandaided it. After that, she took some kind of towel and acohol (or whatever) and cleaned the chair. Also, need to say that we came early in the morning (at the very same moment when ambulance opened) and it wasn't working for 11 hours before that.

So, to conclude and ask - my cousin is some kind of hypochondriac and he has an idea that he is infected with HIV or some kind of hepatitis :) thanks to mentioned cotton ball. He asked the other nurse and she said that chair is disinfectioned and stuff like that and that he shouldn't worry. Ofc, she wouldn't tell him even the situation is different :). Chair "handle" was clear, there were no marks of blood (fresh nor dried) and his elbow and "back of the arm" was on it.

So, the question - should he worry? I believe that potential :D HIV couldn't "survive" 11 h in contact with air. Also, there were no blood on chair (I know that doesn't mean that there is no chance for infection), I beleive they are cleaning it every single day (at least) and there is a small chance that someone infected was there day/or few days before him and that they spilled blood and that it left there without cleaning...ok, maybe there is some kind of chance for mentioned infections but I just believe that he shouldn't worry. So, guys, what do you think? Should he worry? :). Thank you in advance!

P. S. It's private clinic (isn't state owned) so there are no a lots of patients per day (I guess no more that 20, but don't take my word as solid proof).

[kaligula]

Anyone? :)