What is an AIDS Needle?
The legendary AIDS needle refers to a scenario where an AIDS patient injects their blood into a needle and then uses it to scratch others, or hides it somewhere to target innocent victims. However, the HIV virus cannot survive once it leaves its host body and dies within seconds or minutes in the air, especially once the blood dries, the virus dies immediately. It is impossible for the person who is often sabotaged to inject the blood into an innocent person immediately after drawing it. If there is an interval, the virus will gradually lose its activity, and the needle will also be blocked by blood coagulation, preventing the liquid blood from being expelled. Direct access to your bloodstream is only possible if a syringe is used to inject a sufficient amount of fresh, contaminated blood. Only then can infection occur! Tang Xiaoping, Deputy Director of the Clinical Expert Group on AIDS at the Ministry of Health, explained that the survival time of HIV is very short after leaving the human body, especially when exposed to the air. Assuming a needle is infected with HIV and left exposed, the virus will not survive for long, making transmission to humans even more difficult.
Is an AIDS Needle Dangerous?
The reason AIDS needles can cause panic is primarily due to a lack of understanding about HIV. In reality, if one is merely scratched by an "AIDS needle" without the blood from the needle being injected into their body, the chance of contracting HIV is minimal. How minimal is it? Firstly, it's essential to grasp a fundamental truth: HIV transmission necessitates three conditions: quantity, activity, and bodily fluid exchange. Blood and bodily fluids are the conditions for HIV to survive. External factors significantly impact it, preventing its survival in air, water, or food. Once blood separates from the body, losing the temperature provided by the human body, platelets rupture, thrombin is released, blood quickly coagulates, and HIV rapidly loses its activity. There is no unified conclusion on the specific death time, but academia generally agrees that HIV dies within ten minutes. Additionally, in reality, it is challenging for a person to inject HIV-contaminated blood into another person using a needle. Firstly, blood coagulation causes the needle to clog, preventing further blood flow. Secondly, a normal person would not stand still and allow an attacker to inject their blood.
