Hepatitis Forums
Hepatitis C Prevention, Transmission and Testing => Am I Infected? => Topic started by: Confused619 on May 08, 2019, 04:48:43 pm
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So my uncle was over and I used his cell phone to text someone after I touched it I realized there was some dry blood on the screen about the size of a quarter ..... realized this after I touched it.... have a small paper cut from the day before at work it was not bleeding and didn’t go deep enough to bleed just a skin cut . Washed my hands immediately after touching it the dried blood . I don’t believe the paper cut was all the way open when I touched it and was not weeping . Is there a chance u contracted hep c from this ? He is hep c positive .
I have read different things from it’s extremely contagious and that dried blood wasn’t as contagious and unless it was wet and I had a bleeding cut I couldn’t have contracted ?
Probably just nerves getting to me but would like some advice .
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Hep c is not very contagious if it were many more than less than 4% of the US population would be infected.
I tend to doubt that a person who knows they have hep c would leave a blood stain as we all would try our best not to risk other people contracting our infection.
An open wound would be fresh and actively bleeding a superficial paper cut from the day before would not qualify as a fresh injury.
Hep c infected blood must enter the blood stream of an uninfected person. As the cut did not bleed and was over a day old this is not an avenue for anything to enter your blood stream.
So no you did not experience a risk.
Is your uncle aware there are new treatments approved over the last couple of years that are much more effective than the old treatments? Odds of being cured are at 98% and higher for most patients and could be as simple a one pill a day for as few as eight weeks in some cases. Most people report minimal side effects the most common being occasional mild headaches.
If you experience worries of contracting illnesses in exceedingly low risk situations you may want to consider counseling for anxiety.
If he previously treated he and is no longer infected he cannot transmit a virus he does not have. If he has not treated he should contact his doctor and look into getting treated.
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Yeah I’m pretty positive it was blood and I don’t think he would do it on purpose but he does a lot of drugs ... hence how he got hep c. But I guess I have no risk , just wanted to make sure cause I’m was seeing different answers online .
I don’t think he’s had it treated he has had hep c for a very long time .... atleast 25 years .
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I’m assuming he did IV drugs or snorting drugs as those are known risk factors.
I had hep c for 37 years I treated in the past with the old interferon based treatment regimens but had no response as those old treatments at best were only about 30% effective for my genotype of hep c genotype 1a. But even though at 30 years of being infected I developed liver cirrhosis and even with my prior history of multiple treatment failures I was cured of hep c 4 years ago.
So easy to say and harder to do but he really needs to stop using IV drugs and snorting and get treated for hep c. Especially if he is developing liver damage which happens about 20% of patients after 20 years of infection which this risk does increase with time