If you've come into contact with some blood or other body fluid that you think might contain HIV, it's understandable to have some concern about the possibility of HIV transmission. Fears over the casual transmission of HIV have also led many people to be concerned over the risk of contact with spilled blood, dried blood or other body fluids, even in microscopic quantities.
But what's the truth? Can you get HIV with contact outside of the body?
While HIV may live for some time outside the body, HIV transmission has not been reported from contact with spillages of blood, semen or other body fluids, although many healthcare workers do come into contact with HIV-infected body fluids.
According to AIDS.gov, laboratory studies which have looked at the survival of HIV have found that:
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Temperature/Weather Conditions
HIV is sensitive to high temperatures but not to extreme cold. Experiments have shown that HIV is killed by heat, but temperatures over 60°C are needed to achieve reliable killing of HIV.
Levels of virus remain relatively stable in blood at room temperature, and HIV may persist for at least a week in dried blood at 4°C. Blood containing HIV used for laboratory experiments is stored at –70°C without any loss of viral activity.
HIV may survive in dried blood at room temperature for up to five or six days provided that the optimum pH level is maintained; drying of blood does not seem to affect the infectivity of HIV.
Leftover Medical Equipment
HIV may survive for up to four weeks in syringes after HIV-infected blood has been drawn up into the syringe and then flushed out.3 A study of blood gathered from more than 800 syringes filled with small amounts of HIV-infected blood and stored for various periods found that HIV could be isolated from 10% of syringes after eleven days where the quantity of blood was less than 2µl, but 53% of syringes where the quantity of blood was 20µl. Longer survival of HIV was also associated with lower storage temperature (less than 4°C); at higher temperatures (27 to 37°C) survival was not detected beyond seven days.
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Acidic Environment
HIV is very sensitive to changes in alkalinity or acidity – pH level – and pH levels below 7 or above 8 are unsuitable for long-term survival of HIV. One reason why HIV transmission may be less likely in healthy women is due to the acidity of vaginal secretions.
Feces/Sewage
Sewage is highly unlikely to pose a risk because infectious HIV has never been isolated from feces or urine. However,...
... research by Thames Water has shown that HIV can survive for several days in sewage in the laboratory.
Fresh Water
HIV does not survive as long as other viruses in ocean/sea water.
Infectious HIV has been recovered from human corpses between eleven and 16 days after death in bodies stored at the usual mortuary temperature of 2°C. It is unclear how long infectious HIV may persist in corpses left to decay at normal room temperature, but HIV has been cultured from organs stored at 20°C up to 14 days after death. HIV was not detected in significant quantities later than 16 days, implying that buried corpses or those preserved for long periods pose less of a risk to undertakers and pathologists.
So in practical terms, there isn't a simple, straightforward answer to the question of how long HIV survives outside the body. But there's little reason to worry about contact with body fluids that have already been outside a person's body for some minutes.
In certain, specific circumstances it may survive more than a few minutes. But it generally does not remain infectious and certainly does not pose a threat to people's health.
