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Scab as entry point?
Hi,
I about 4 days ago cut my thumb with a knife at work and it started to scab, I went to the bathroom and touched the flush button with this thumb expose the cut to the button. As I am female, I am worried that there might be traces of microscopic blood on the button as females get their period and sometimes when inserting tampons, blood gets on the finger and then they use that to press the button. I’m not sure if I had opened my scab as there was not any fresh blood. Could I be at risk?
I about 4 days ago cut my thumb with a knife at work and it started to scab, I went to the bathroom and touched the flush button with this thumb expose the cut to the button. As I am female, I am worried that there might be traces of microscopic blood on the button as females get their period and sometimes when inserting tampons, blood gets on the finger and then they use that to press the button. I’m not sure if I had opened my scab as there was not any fresh blood. Could I be at risk?
Hepatitis c infected blood must enter at a minimum through an open wet weeping wound not a scabbed over cut.
Hep c is difficult to transmit there are no known transmissions by the means you have described.
Even if a healthcare worker should experience an accidental needle stick involving a patient with known hep c the odds of transmission is only about 1.8%.
Only about 1% of the population even has hep c so your odds of randomly even encountering a person with hep c is one in a hundred. Then that person would have to leave enough blood to transmit infection recently enough that the blood was still viable and not cleaned up by the cleaning staff. Then this blood would have to enter a fresh injury. So I am sure you can see the odds of all this happening are exceedingly small to non existant.
If you continue to have concerns and unnecessary worries about the highly unlikely risk of contracting an illness please see your doctor to discuss possible anxiety issues and get counseling if needed. Most people would not have even considered the scenario you described.
To answer your original question “Could I be at risk?”
No you are not at risk.
Best of luck
Hep c is difficult to transmit there are no known transmissions by the means you have described.
Even if a healthcare worker should experience an accidental needle stick involving a patient with known hep c the odds of transmission is only about 1.8%.
Only about 1% of the population even has hep c so your odds of randomly even encountering a person with hep c is one in a hundred. Then that person would have to leave enough blood to transmit infection recently enough that the blood was still viable and not cleaned up by the cleaning staff. Then this blood would have to enter a fresh injury. So I am sure you can see the odds of all this happening are exceedingly small to non existant.
If you continue to have concerns and unnecessary worries about the highly unlikely risk of contracting an illness please see your doctor to discuss possible anxiety issues and get counseling if needed. Most people would not have even considered the scenario you described.
To answer your original question “Could I be at risk?”
No you are not at risk.
Best of luck
1 Comments
Thank you so much, you have put my mind at ease
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