hlaufman@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Harry B Laufman) (12/06/90)
ST602662%BROWNVM.BITNET@oac.ucla.edu (Bill Jesdale) writes: | In answer to the question of how dangerous are various exposures | to bodily fluids of HIV infected persons: | First, we do not know. | Some estimates are given by two recent articles in the Annals | of Internal Medecine (15 Nov 90)....Infection with HIV-1 among | Recipients of Antibody Positive Blood Donations....is around 90%. [...] | ...for an innoculation of HIV+ blood directly into the body, but | not necessarily into the bloodstream, they estimate the odds of | transmission to be 0.29%, per needlestick (95%CI 0.13 to 0.70). So the probability of sero-conversion (the measure used here) is related to challenge dose. Is this also true for other viral infection? Rabies comes to mind. What is the frequency of infected cells in an HIV positive (+/- symptomatic ?) individual? I was involved in a dose curve study of transplantable guinea pig leukemia (L2C) several years ago, as a researcher not a subject :). Using serial dilutions we challenged the pigs with factor of 10 dilutions from 10*6 cells down to (in theory) 1 cell with an intra cardiac stick. I recall that most (say 8/10) of the one cell challenge pigs never developed the leukemia. At 10 a higher number, at 100 all eventually succumbed. Our assumption was that only one cell was necessary for transmitance and that failure at low doses was due to pigs not getting ANY cells due to procedural difficulties (the dilutions, the mechanics of administration, etc) not immunity. Forgive the vagueness of my recollection as this was well over ten years ago (Sam Murphy, can you help?). Realizing the difference (?!) of this model with HIV challenge, do we know any dose response data re: HIV? In the simian HIV model? This hint that HIV cannot always be transmitted by what has been labeled the offending virus is troublesome. Regards, Harry hlaufman@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu