Stuck by HIV infected blood

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Just a quick question.

My nephew was in the lab at school yesterday and he was holding a tube of blood. SOMEHOW (I haven't had chance to talk to his mom....just going by what my mother in law told me) the tube broke, cut through his glove and cut his finger. Long story short, the blood was HIV infected. School is saying that they don't know HOW the blood got into the lab. That's a whole other story though...

He went to the hospital and they have him on some medication. Does anyone have any idea what the name of it would be? My mil said that it's the same medication that HIV infected patients take but that she can't remember the name of it. The side effects are supposedly awful. I want to do a search on the medication. I think she said he will take it for a month.

***Edited to say that my nephew is 21. This happened at his college campus lab***

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

The good thing is that the HIV virus does not remain potent outside the body for very long. After a sample of HIV-tainted blood has been drawn from the donor, the virus will remain potent for 12 hours. After this 12-hour time frame of being outside the human body, the HIV virus no longer tends to have the potency to infect anyone.

Your nephew stands a much greater chance of contracting the hepatitis virus since it requires being exposed to 30 minutes of high temperatures before it will die and/or become nonpotent.

The antiviral your nephew is taking just might be called 'Viracept'.

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Specializes in Rural Health.

Here is some info on HIV and needlesticks

http://rnweb.com/rnweb/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=192809

My SIL had to take the medication after a surgeon nicked her by accident and the patient refused to be tested for HIV as a result of the accident. She was on the medication for 30 days and it did not make her sick. She had 3-4 HIV tests in the months following and all was fine.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Hunh!!?? This is a high school kid who got stuck with HIV tainted blood in school???!!!! This needs to be investigated.

The HIV-post exposure cocktail can be several combinations. They have to be taken at the correct times and for a month. What we find in the ER, is that folks have a difficult time dealing with the side-effects. Also, am unsure of the efficicacy of giving these to kids...

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As far as I know (which is not very far, but at least I don't get lost...) New York State is the only DoH that has pediatric guidelines for postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) in children:

http://www.hivguidelines.org/public_html/p-pep/p-pep.htm

Combivir + Viracept seems to be a pretty widely accepted cocktail for PEP, and it's supposed to have fewer side effects than the older PEP. IMHO (which is not medical advice, by the way) any child on PEP should be managed by a pedi ID/HIV specialist until the course is done. Who knows; maybe they could find a combo that would have fewer side effects.

It's so weird that his lab had HIV+ blood lying around--that stuff is hard to find anywhere! But I'm assuming he's a child. Is this a lab at a big teaching hospital / major university? I can't believe that *any* school lab would allow handling of blood products of any kind without extraordinary protective measures, much less any HIV+ samples. I'm sorry such a bizarre accident affected your family like this. I'm crossing my fingers for your nephew -- though PEP is highly effective, and I'm sure he doesn't need my silly fingers.

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Hunh!!?? This is a high school kid who got stuck with HIV tainted blood in school???!!!! This needs to be investigated.

The HIV-post exposure cocktail can be several combinations. They have to be taken at the correct times and for a month. What we find in the ER, is that folks have a difficult time dealing with the side-effects. Also, am unsure of the efficicacy of giving these to kids...

No, not high school....college age. They said that HIV tainted blood is not supposed to be in their campus labs though.

Thanks everyone! I'll do a search on the meds listed. It's comforting to hear that the virus doesn't remain potent for very long once drawn. I never knew that.

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.

HIV tainted blood in a college lab? Does this sound right? I remember one of my fellow micro students offering to bring in meningococcal bacteria from his job at the local hospital lab and the instructor was like "no way, no how".

If your nephew was exposed to HIV in a college lab that's a huge liability on the part of the college. From all the literature his chances of sero-converting are pretty low.

I guess there might be a research related college related job where you would willingly work with HIV tainted blood but otherwise how does this happen?

All my good thoughts go to your nephew, those meds are no fun plus the anxiety of awaiting test results.

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Specializes in Med/Surg.
Just a quick question.

My nephew was in the lab at school yesterday and he was holding a tube of blood. SOMEHOW (I haven't had chance to talk to his mom....just going by what my mother in law told me) the tube broke, cut through his glove and cut his finger. Long story short, the blood was HIV infected. School is saying that they don't know HOW the blood got into the lab. That's a whole other story though...

He went to the hospital and they have him on some medication. Does anyone have any idea what the name of it would be? My mil said that it's the same medication that HIV infected patients take but that she can't remember the name of it. The side effects are supposedly awful. I want to do a search on the medication. I think she said he will take it for a month.

***Edited to say that my nephew is 21. This happened at his college campus lab***

Sounds like a failure of the college lab to ensure the safety of the students. what is HIV tainted blood doing in a college lab?!?!?!?! I smell a lawsuit.:nono:

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Sounds like a failure of the college lab to ensure the safety of the students. what is HIV tainted blood doing in a college lab?!?!?!?! I smell a lawsuit.:nono:

Thank you....that's what I'm saying. His mom keeps saying she doesn't know what good a law suit would do. Um, HELLOOOO.....it doesn't matter what good it would do! It matters because the college is at FAULT.

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I agree with you! A lawsuit will at the very least make SOMEONE look at how the heck HIV infected blood got there in the first place!

My thoughts and prayers are you and your nephew.

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.
No, not high school....college age. They said that HIV tainted blood is not supposed to be in their campus labs though.

Sorry if I'm a little dense, but I'm not quite sure what happened. Is he a student in a laboratory methods course, and was stuck handling a "known" specimen that he was supposed to be analyzing?

Or does he work in the student health center, and was stuck handling a recently-drawn specimen of blood? If the latter is the case, how would anyone know the HIV status of the patient from whom the blood was drawn?

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HIV is really good at hiding. Your nephew should get regularly blood tests for many years to make sure that the virus didn't get a foothold.

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