Of Tooth brush and Razors

"Injecting drug use with shared syringes and handmade tools is a disaster in prisons. In addition, tattooing with common equipments, sharing shavers and sometimes tooth brush are the other methods of HIV transmission".

"To solve the problem, replacement therapies with agonist substances such as methadone and Buprenorphine, distribution of syringes needles and bleach (only for tattoo) and providing shaver and tooth-brash as health share of prisoners can reduce common use of mentioned tools and equipments".

Not so long ago, I had attended the Iran-Malaysia Joint Seminar on HIV and AIDS as a participant. It was my first time being in a joint conferences and there were many eye opening discoveries, especially interventions and policies regarding HIV prevention, care and support both in Iran and Malaysia.

One of the eye opening discoveries include this slide presented by a professor from Iran. This was a plenary session on Prison and the measures done to reduce health risks associated harm in prisoners.

The speaker had stated that the sharing of toothbrush and razors can transmitted HIV.

...to my utter surprise!

Perhaps they should go back to the basics or better still, check their facts here (and Spelling! If you noticed the 2nd Brush was spelled as "Brash")
(since this is afterall a national level seminar).

For transmission to occur,
Fact No. 1: HIV must be in bodily fluid or blood (Not in the dry-and-already-being-coagulated-by-protein form because the virus cannot survive in the air)

Fact No. 2: A person who has the virus, has to have a cut / open wound with enough blood or bodily fluid (for example semen or vaginal fluid) (in liquid form)

Fact No. 3: The person who is about to be infected has to also have an entry point (bodily fluid / open wound)

Three of the above conditions have to occur at the same time for transmission to occur

I had learnt that the main modes of transmission for HIV are:

1) Via sexual intercourse with a person who is already infected with HIV, being Vaginal, Anal (high risk) and/or Oral (low risk) sex;
2) Sharing of needles with a person infected with HIV;
3) Blood transfussion from a person infected with HIV (to a less extend nowadays);
4) Mother-to-child transmission; and /or
5) From the breast milk of an infected mother to a child.

Two face?

Source: The Fire Wire

One side says that we "do not" stigmatise nor discriminate people living with HIV;
the other says that we should take all possible precautions in the whole wide world to prevent HIV transmission, as if people living with HIV are diseased people who can spread the virus anytime they wanted!

Talk about being activists and "saviour" of the mankind.