CDC NATIONAL AIDS HOTLINE TRAINING BULLETIN #31 - March 2, 1993
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Is it possible to get infected with HIV by touching the genitals of an infected person, touching a condom used by an infected person, or otherwise touching the semen, vaginal secretions, or blood of an infected person?

There is not much scientific evidence on how risky it is to have semen, vaginal fluid, or blood from an infected person touch your intact skin. A few health-care workers have become infected after HIV infected blood or concentrated virus from a laboratory specimen contacted their skin, eyes, nose, or other mucous membranes. This is still much less likely to infect a person than is a skin puncture with a needle already used on someone infected with HIV. Studies of people who lived with or took care of (but did not have sex with) someone with AIDS show that the risk of getting HIV infection from just touching their body, blood, sweat, saliva, vomit, urine, or feces, is nonexistent or very low. None of the people in these studies became infected. We do not know of any occurrences of HIV transmission caused by touching the genitals of an infected person or holding a used condom. However, you should be careful when dealing with blood, semen, or vaginal fluids that might contain HIV. Do not touch the blood, semen, or vaginal secretions of another person. If one of these fluids does touch your skin, wash your skin with soap and water as soon as possible.