Can you get AIDS from intimate contact?

In intimate contact, AIDS is only a risk of infection in sexual contact, not in everyday contact.

HIV is mainly found in the blood, semen, vaginal secretions, pleural and abdominal fluid, cerebrospinal fluid and breast milk of HIV-infected patients and AIDS patients, and can be transmitted through sexual contact (including oral sex, guided sex, anal sex, finger sex), blood and blood products (including sharing needles for intravenous drug use, interventional medical treatment, etc.), and mother-to-child transmission (including transplacental, delivery and breastfeeding). Sexual contact is the most important mode of transmission. Sexual contact is the main mode of transmission, while casual contact such as eating and drinking together, hugging, shaking hands, sneezing, etc. will not infect HIV.

The main routes of transmission are sexual, which is the primary mode of transmission in the global AIDS epidemic, and among intravenous drug users, where sharing drug injecting equipment is a steady and increasing risk factor; transmission through blood products, where the use of whole blood, red blood cells, freshly frozen plasma, and platelets from a single donor, or the use of blood products produced by a blood bank is associated with the possibility of HIV infection; mother-to-child transmission, where about 30% of HIV-1 positive mothers can cause HIV-1 infection in their newborns; transmission among health care workers, where the probability of contracting HIV is very small and the risk of needle stick infection is only 0.2%.

If you have had unprotected sexual contact with a person with HIV, you should seek medical help for appropriate testing or treatment.

This content was reviewed by Dr. Li Dongzeng, Deputy Chief Physician, Department of Infection, Beijing You'an Hospital, Capital Medical University.

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