|  Do
you have HIV?
He
checked for HIV, what about me?
Aside
from sex, things that concern us
What
about Cosmetics? For example picking pimples, black heads,
and Tatoos?
Are
you willing to VCT?
Other
people have shown concerns for you, is there a reason not
to take care of yourself?
Do you have HIV?
There is no need to avoid these things anymore. We can talk
about HIV infection, about AIDS, and about the lifestyles
contributing to these.
Let us put all issues, both easy and difficult on the table,
not to judge whether they are right or wrong, good or bad.
We are only concerned how much of them are related to AIDS,
so that we take responsibility for our own lives.
We just want to ask ourselves ......
An-an anxiously paces back and forth in the spacious living
room with feelings of mixed emotions. Her husband is not at
home and is on a business trip. He is often not home. Even
if he is, they do not talk much. He often falls asleep while
watching TV. The three sentences he uses the most are probably
the following: "I'm hungry", "I'm tired",
and "I'm going".
Maybe because of longing for excitement or some feeling of
being loved, half a year ago, a photographer walked into her
life. Happy conversations and loving stares all seemed to
have brought back the fun and excitement to life.
One day, An-an discovered a laboratory test result for HIV
in her boyfriend's place. Although the result was negative,
it implied something. An-an ran out and thought, "Does
he have the sense of responsibility to be loyal to me?"
In the beginning, she was just upset. But after some deep
thinking, she broke out a cold sweat.
He checked for HIV, what about me?
Checkup is necessary. This extra-marital love affair involves
some risks for HIV infection as An-an does not really know
much about her friend, much less his sex life and sex partners.
First, let us look at the risk of mouth-to-mouth kissing.
In theory, mouth-to-mouth kissing does not transmit HIV. Medical
research has already proven that although there is HIV in
the saliva of the infected persons, the virus is killed by
the gastric juice that contains high density of acid when
the saliva is swallowed. Except when a person has oral ulcer
or broken mucous membrane. To date, only one case of HIV infection
transmitted through French kiss is reported informally on
the web. To be on safe side, some doctors suggest that if
you do not know the guy very well, just to kiss shallow, not
deep; dry, not wet.
When it comes to sex, a research done in Africa shows that
if one partner is infected with HIV and the other is not,
rate of infection will occur once in every 538 occasions on
the average. In other words, the infection rate through sex
is 0.2%, almost the same rate as infection by the use of needles.
Oral, vaginal, and anal sex without condom belong to unprotected
sex. Among them, the risk of oral sex is relatively low while
anal sex has the highest risk. This is because the anal sphincter
is tight and the anal membrane is thin, which breaks and bleeds
easily during sexual intercourse, explaining why homosexuals
have higher rate of infection.
The risks for female is greater than male because 70% of the
women suffer from cervical erosion. During sex, it is very
easy for the virus to enter the body through a small surface
of the wound. The risk of infection is even higher when having
sex during period of menstruation period, when the cervical
entrance is open. Suffering from other infectious venereal
diseases also increase the risks of infection because when
the genitals are inflamed, barrier membranes are affected.
In addition, symptoms are very light and difficult to detect
for women suffering from some infectious venereal diseases
such as gonorrhea and chlamydial infections.
How do we then avoid this 0.2%? During sexual contact, as
long as good quality condom is used, the risk of HIV infection
can be greatly reduced by as much as 70-90%. One important
issue is many people wear condom just before ejaculation.
This practice may provide good contraception protection, but
zero protection from HIV, because it is most likely the membrane
is broken during the process before this moment.
A small detail
Another detail neglected by An-an is: The time the HIV test
was performed.
This is actually a very important issue. HIV infection has
2 weeks to 3 months of incubation period, the period before
antibodies are generated by the body after the infection.
During this period, the body is HIV infected, but the test
result will be negative. Therefore, when a doctor sees a negative
test result, he will inform the patient to undergo testing
again after 3 months. The more accurate way of saying is:
Re-test after 3 months following the last unprotected sex
or sexual contact with person possibly infected with HIV.
Although, the three-month period is the more secure timing,
most people infected would already test positive in about
two weeks.
Aside from sex, things that concern us
Aside from sex, some daily life activities concern us like
seeing a dentist.
A newspaper article reported relations between HIV and oral
medicine or dentistry. There was a time when dentists received
cancellation of appointments by phone. Such concerns are not
unnecessary. If the previous patient is infected and the dental
drill and gears are not properly sterilized, then it is very
possible to transmit the infection during tooth cleaning,
dental extraction, dental filling and dental crowning. All
clinics change the dental drills that have direct contact
with patients' mouth, but they do not change the drill heads
for everybody. If virus in the water is absorbed by the drill
head, it is possible to transmit the infection to the next
patient. At present, healthy administrative institutes are
requesting all dental hospitals and clinics to implement rigorous
sterilization of all dental drills and gears after each patient
use. If these rules are properly implemented, then seeing
a dentist will not present any risk of contracting the HIV
infection. Therefore, it is important to select standard hospitals
and clinics and pay attention whether the dentist changes
his gloves, dental drills and drill heads. You have the right
to demand the doctor to use dental drills and heads from the
sterilized boxes and bags in front of you.
What about Cosmetics? For example picking
pimples, black heads, and Tatoos?
There is very small chance of contracting HIV through these
means, because HIV has very weak immunity in the outside world.
It dies within minutes upon departure from the human body,
unless an HIV-infected patient has just finished a surgery,
and the same needle is used on you without sterilization first.
Ordinary alcohol can kill HIV. Therefore, if you are not so
sure, you may ask the cosmetician to wipe the needle with
alcohol.
Is there risk of infection from blood transfusion? The blood
source obtained from regular channels should not be infected.
However, there is a very small exception: If the blood donor
happens to be in the incubation period of HIV infection, then
the test would not reveal any infection and the blood will
be tainted. Therefore, doctors now suggest not to use blood
transfusion or other blood-related products as much as possible.
The "needle injection" incident, which happened
not long ago, is not as scary as we imagined. Even if the
needle is infected, there is only 0.2% chance of infection
for every injection. If faced with such situation, the first
thing to do is to try your best to bleed the wound, and then
wash it with soap. If there is a risk of infection, preventive
measures should immediately be taken after the exposureˇ±
under doctor supervision. Preventive medicine should be taken,
which can provide 90% protection.
There is no risk of infection in handshaking, hugging, dining
together, and sharing room and toilet with people with AIDS.
In a soap opera starring leading actor Jin-Chenwu, the leading
female role suffered from AIDS and gave birth to a healthy
baby. Special consultation was conducted with experts on this
issue. If the pregnant mother is infected with HIV, the chance
of infecting the baby through pregnancy, delivery and breast-feeding
(like sperm, breast milk has a lot of virus) is 40%. Put the
other way, she has 60% chance of giving birth to an uninfected
baby. At the same time, preventive medicine, cesarean birth,
bottle-feeding, and other methods can lower the risk below
8%.
Are you willing to VCT?
Sometimes, for peace of mind, we also want to be tested for
HIV.
The United Nations has vigorously promoted HIV VCT (short
for HIV Voluntary Counseling and Test) program. As the name
suggests, you take the counseling and test on your own decision.
Health expert Mr. Shiyong Wang conducted VCT training for
Hong Kong International Clinic (Beijing) counselors. He said
that,"Finding infection is not the main purpose of VCT,
the most important is the counseling given before and after
the test, which will help people to better protect themselves."
The doctor will not examine the authenticity of your name
and ID. Before asking personal questions, they will seek your
permission, and promise to keep them as confidential. They
will also ask about your way of handling major issues in life
in order to provide necessary assistance. Finally, with your
permission, a nurse will take some blood samples from you
to send directly to the laboratory.
Express test can provide results in 30 minutes. Such express
tests, due to the need for high sensitivity, may sometime
provide false positive. If the result is positive, the sample
needs to be sent to local quarantine station or disease control
department for confirmation. It will take seven days to get
the result - the pressure is high but it is necessary.
The test result is personally communicated by the doctor to
the patient. It cannot be relayed over the phone for reasons
of confidentiality. If the result is negative, it will be
a big relief and the doctor will provide information to the
patient on how to protect oneself. In case it is positive,
the doctor will provide assistance and recommend appropriate
institutes for treatment based on information gathered before
the test. The assistance also includes what method to use
to inform current or former sex partner? Should the patient
himself/herself inform the partner or should the doctor help?
Details are very important: For example, the blood sample
tube has only code - no name - on it. The sofa is arranged
in a way that there is no desk between you and the doctor,
so as not to give a feeling of being under surveillance; and
the light inside the consulting room is not very bright, so
as not to daze.
Other people have shown concerns for you, is there a reason
not to take care of yourself?
HIV VCT has become very popular in U.S., Europe, and some
countries in Africa. The research shows that for people who
have received VCT, the chances of engaging in risky behavior
are obviously reduced. But in China, only few organizations
have implemented it and it is still in experimental stage.
Organizations providing HIV tests and their telephone:
Hong Kong International Clinic, Beijing
HIV VCT by appointment(Xiaozhou Wang)
010-6502 3426
China Health Education Institute, 010-6426 6958
Beijing Venereal Diseases and AIDS Prevention and Treatment
Associations, 010-6223 8683
Beijing Venereal Diseases Prevention and Treatment Institute,
010-6329 3342
Beijing No. 1 Infectious Diseases Hospital, 010-6422 6966
Shanghai Health Quarantine, 021-6437 0055
Guangzhou Health Quarantine, 020-8445 7336
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