Question:

Dear doctor,
Maybe this is a very unusual and bizzare question, maybe not, but I did not find answer to it anywhere on the net, so I am comming to you:

It is said that the HIV virus survives in the body fluids outside the body for just several hours (how many I do not know). It is, I suppose, because the fluids dry up and the virus is sensitive to oxygen and it dies. But what if these fluids do not dry up (for example in water or wet environment, or in an ointment)?

I was thinking especially of the ointment, as it stays "wet" quite long. Is there any danger from using an ointment in which some amount (maybe little) of these body fluids would be present and would keep its infectiousness? As hypothetical as this question is, I would nonetheless be glad if you could answer it.

I have also read that HIV virus can be suspended and reactivated in alcohol. I have never heard about this before and it seems to me like important information. So alcohol should not be used to disinfect?

Thank you very much for your time. --J

Answer provided by:

Mark H. Katz, M.D.
Regional HIV/AIDS Physician Coordinator
Kaiser Permanente of Southern California

You certainly bring up questions which are unusual!

I do not know why one would even "suspect" that the virus survives in ointment, given how ointments are manufactured so as to usually be anti-microbial in nature. How would one ever prove this? Or even more to the point, prove that this could cause HIV infection to be spread? In many health care and institutional settings nowadays, antibacterial ointment is dispensed in individual packets, rather than from larger tubes. Please consider doing this if it will abate your anxiety.

As for the second issue, there have been voices for years which have denounced alcohol as a disinfectant. This runs counter to the way in which HIV has been understood by most scientists and clinicians for years. I think that rather than tell you definitively which is right and which is wrong, I would urge you, if this is an issue for you, to read further, consider the sources, and draw your own conclusions. For me, alcohol as a disinfectant against HIV works just fine!

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