Can the virus survive outside the human body?
People used to think that all the HIV particles became severely damaged after only twenty minutes outside the body. If this were the case, surgeons would only need to hang up their instruments in the sun for an hour before safely carrying on with the next operation. Infection control guidelines are several centimetres thick in many countries. Sterilisation is vitally important. An important paper shows that although most virus particles do become damaged after a few hours, a few may survive after three to seven days in dry dust, and over two weeks in water, although only under unusual conditions. In freeze dried Factor VIII, HIV survives undamaged for months, hence the problems for those with haemophilia before heat treatment began in 1985.
