hpv from towel?

[andy950]

Can a person be hpv infected if they used a towel that had been used the previous day by someone with an hpv infection/wart?  My daughter used a towel after swimming, 16 hours after I had used the same towel to dry myself including a part of the body where I think I have an hpv wart infection. Normally I try to avoid this happening but this time the towel was used by mistake.

I had used a lot of soap and some of it was still on me when I used the towel. I am assuming (hoping) that this made it less likely that the towel would have picked up the infection, also that 16 hours in a normal (not humid or warm) environment would be too long for the virus to survive. Is this right?

Many thanks

[monkeemash]

Technically, yes it's possible. Reality is the risk is super low. HPV needs ideal skin to skin conditions to spread.

[alexdelong]

Hi andy,

I recall some of our previous discussions. Some of the advice I gave was that while some things may be theoretically possible, they are so unlikely that they might as well be classified as impossible, and may actually never happen in the real world. Getting HPV from a towel in any circumastance would be one of those situations. It is even less likely after it had sat for 16 hours.