Health and Safety Issues

HIV: the Facts about Transmission Risks in the Workplace

HIV-related discrimination often results from lack of knowledge and misconceptions about the transmission of HIV. The workplace is no exception to pre-conceived ideas and “myths” about the routes of transmission of the virus.

For all the facts download the HIV is your business booklet from the EPF Media Centre

There is a general assumption that everyone diagnosed as being HIV will go onto develop AIDS and one of the many misconceptions is that being HIV automatically seems to be associated with AIDS. In fact there is a distinct difference between both HIV and AIDS.

HIV is a virus, a virus that enters the body and slowly works to damage the cells of the immune system. It can remain undetected for many years and this may depend on the general health of the individual or other factors. It may produce some flu like symptons or there may be no symptons at all until the immune system sustains damage

AIDS is not one condition, but a variety of serious illnesses caused as a result of the damage HIV has done to the immune system. With treatment, AIDS is no longer an inevitable result of an HIV infection.

How does HIV transmission occur?

HIV is a fragile virus, which can only survive in a limited range of conditions. It can only enter the body through naturally moist places and cannot penetrate unbroken skin. Prevention therefore involves ensuring that there is a barrier to the virus, for example condoms.

HIV infection cannot occur in the following circumstances:

There is no danger in working with someone who is HIV positive. You cannot become infected through everyday work activities
HIV cannot be contracted through sharing a keyboard, telephones, shaking hands or sharing tools or stationery, through kissing, drinking from the same glass, sharing food or using the same toilet or washing facilities.
Mosquitoes or other insect bites.
It cannot be spread by touch or through air and water, or by coughing and sneezing.
The virus cannot be passed on by people who are HIV handling or preparing food.
Occupational HIV transmission may be an issue within certain positions within healthcare i.e. invasive and exposure prone procedures such as surgery or midwifery, the risk amongst health workers not involved in these procedures is negligible.

HIV is only spread through limited routes:

Sexually, through unprotected intercourse with an infected partner, male or female, gay or straight, where semen, vaginal secretions or blood enter the body. Condoms are highly effective in preventing the sexual transmission of HIV.

Sharing needles and /or syringes, (primarily for drug injection) with someone who is HIV positive. All blood used for transfusions in the UK has been screened for HIV since 1986, and blood products are treated to destroy the virus. There is no risk in giving blood in the UK.

From an infected mother to her newborn baby a pregnant woman may transmit the virus to her baby before or during birth, or HIV can be passed on during breastfeeding. However, due to early medical intervention and education around HIV and pregnancy the rate of newly born babies diagnosed as HIV in the UK is now less than 1%.