A Pepsi employee added blood to the drink. Fake news about getting HIV by eating a banana and drinking Pepsi. Can you get infected with HIV by eating or drinking something with blood in it?

The message goes like this:

I received information from friends, be careful and careful!

Do not drink any Pepsi products for the next few weeks because a company employee has added his blood contaminated with HIV (AIDS). It was shown on Sky News yesterday. Please forward this message to people you care about.

Really alarming. Those who do not know will immediately begin to notify, and people familiar with these diseases will ignore the letter, maybe even laugh. Why? - let's look further at the portal hiv.rf

HIV and AIDS are not the same thing:

HIV- a virus that attacks the immune system.

HIV- human immunodeficiency virus - a virus that causes AIDS- acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. HIV can weaken the immune system to the point where the body develops opportunistic diseases that a healthy immune system would normally fight off.

Diagnosis AIDS develops several years after HIV infection when a person develops one or more serious diseases.

There are several ways of transmitting HIV infection:

Unprotected (without a condom) penetrative sexual contact; - sharing or reusing syringes, needles and other injection equipment;

Use of non-sterile instruments for tattoos and piercings;

Using someone else's shaving equipment, toothbrushes with blood residue;

Transmission of the virus from an HIV-positive mother to her child - during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.

HIV is not transmitted:

When shaking hands or hugging; - through sweat or tears;

When coughing and sneezing;

When using shared dishes or bed linen;

When sharing a bathtub and/or toilet;

When playing sports together;

In public transport;

Through animals or insect bites;

When kissing / through saliva.

HIV is not transmitted by kissing, since the concentration of the virus in saliva is not enough for infection

HIV does not live long in the air:

There are many misconceptions and misinterpretations of scientific evidence regarding HIV's life outside the human body. Laboratory studies use virus concentrations that are at least 100,000 times higher than those found in nature. When such artificially high concentrations are used, HIV can remain alive for 1-3 days after the liquid has dried.

Laboratory concentrations are at least 100,000 times higher than natural concentrations. If we reduce the data to the natural concentration of the virus, we can conclude that HIV lives outside the body for only a few minutes. If HIV lived outside the body for many hours or days (in its natural concentrations), we would undoubtedly observe cases of household infection - but they do not happen.

For safety reasons (although there is no danger), an infected person may not be hired into production. It's stupid not to drink this soda without knowing which batch is "contaminated"

And if you think that it’s “infected”, then think bigger: The soda is produced in large batches and can be stored for a year. Let us conclude that one week is definitely not enough.

To this day, posts appear on social networks where supposedly terrorists infected with AIDS in the subway fasten blades to the handrails of cars, cut their palms and leave. Yes, cutting yourself is unpleasant, but there will be so little blood left on the blade that the virus will die after a couple of minutes or seconds, without having time to find a new carrier.

Russians are massively receiving scary messages in instant messengers and social networks saying that under no circumstances should they drink drinks from Pepsi - they are allegedly infected with HIV.

“Do not drink any Pepsi products for the next few weeks because a company employee has added his blood contaminated with HIV (AIDS). It was shown on Sky News yesterday. Please send this message to people you care about,” is what the text looks like as it wanders from one user to another.

The message in Russian does not sound very competent and is written with an error. After reading, it seems that the text was translated into Russian in an online translator from some other language. And this is not an unreasonable assumption.

It's not just Russians who are scared

The frightening text is now being distributed exclusively in Russia, but residents of other countries have encountered it in previous years. The alarming message was discussed at different times in Britain and the USA. There, information about allegedly contaminated drinks from the said company was distributed on Facebook.

Should we start being afraid?

If you have received or will receive this message, then do not worry.

Firstly, to date there have not been a single case of HIV infection through food.
Secondly, the human immunodeficiency virus does not live outside the human body and quickly dies in the air, when heated or under the influence of acidic gastric juice. In other words, there is simply no risk of becoming infected even by consuming such products.

Still, it’s better not to drink

In general, it looks like banal annoying spam. Who and why started sending out frightening messages is currently unknown. However, you can do your part to stop this information terror - ignore and do not send this message to your loved ones when you receive it.

At the same time, you can still take one useful reminder from this message: any sugary soda is not the healthiest product, and it is really best to avoid it in your diet.

The message goes like this:

I received information from friends, be careful and careful!

Do not drink any Pepsi products for the next few weeks because a company employee has added his blood contaminated with HIV (AIDS). It was shown on Sky News yesterday. Please forward this message to people you care about.

HIV and AIDS are not the same thing:

HIV- a virus that attacks the immune system.

Diagnosis AIDS develops several years after HIV infection when a person develops one or more serious diseases.

There are several ways of transmitting HIV infection:

Unprotected (without a condom) penetrative sexual contact; - sharing or reusing syringes, needles and other injection equipment;

Use of non-sterile instruments for tattoos and piercings;

Using someone else's shaving equipment, toothbrushes with blood residue;

Transmission of the virus from an HIV-positive mother to her child - during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.

HIV is not transmitted:

When shaking hands or hugging; - through sweat or tears;

When coughing and sneezing;

When using shared dishes or bed linen;

When sharing a bathtub and/or toilet;

When playing sports together;

In public transport;

Through animals or insect bites;

When kissing / through saliva.

HIV is not transmitted by kissing, since the concentration of the virus in saliva is not enough for infection

HIV does not live long in the air:

For safety reasons (although there is no danger), an infected person may not be hired into production. It's stupid not to drink this soda without knowing which batch is "contaminated"

And if you think that it’s “infected”, then think bigger: The soda is produced in large batches and can be stored for a year. Let us conclude that one week is definitely not enough.

Probably only the lazy have not heard the news about bananas and Pepsi with HIV infection. Social networks are periodically replete with photographs of bloody fruits that carry a mortal threat. Why and where do such messages come from? An attempt to induce panic and pathological fear of the author - terrible diseases are pursued at every turn. HIV is probably breaking records for the number of horror stories, myths and sensational but false news.

The first “sensation” about bananas filled with HIV-infected blood appeared back in 2014. The text stated that the shipment of fruit had arrived from South Africa. The fruits were intended for the population of European countries, for the purpose of specifically infecting HIV with bananas. The panic caused by such news reached such proportions that the state Ministry of Health had to reassure the citizens of one of the CIS countries.

After the stories with bananas, news began to appear about infected oranges: infected blood was injected into the fruit using a syringe. Accusations against countries supplying the world with oranges almost led to an international scandal.

Fortunately, not all people are gullible, like social network users who leave thousands of comments on posts about “speed fruits.”

The level of awareness and literacy of the population regarding HIV is extremely low, given the massive reaction to absurd rumors. In addition to rumors about contaminated fruit, they periodically appear in movie theater seats and escalator handles; sale in pharmacies of tablets with a wire containing the virus; about a food service worker who added his HIV-tainted blood to Pepsi. The latter tale has recently excited youth in different countries of the world. Allegedly, Pepsi, contaminated with AIDS, is now sold in fast foods and stores, and, naturally, its use is prohibited. The transfer of information from one little-informed person to another, less educated, led to another fact - in addition to Pepsi, HIV “got into” almost all carbonated drinks, juices and mineral water.

The story with Pepsi is most likely the machinations of competitors, because anti-advertising, one way or another, influenced sales of the drink. Pepsico had to call on doctors and publicly prove to the world that HIV cannot be transmitted through soda. The sources of other fake horror stories have not been reliably discovered, but psychologists believe that such news is spread by people with HIV infection so as not to endure their grief alone. Another option for the emergence of sensations related to AIDS is something like a psychological experiment - how people will react to some socially significant issue, a kind of way to “sway the crowd.”

Can you get infected with HIV by eating or drinking something with blood in it?

Although HIV is a terrible and incurable disease, its weak side is... The virus exists and multiplies exclusively in the biological fluids of the host body. A retrovirus is in no way capable of living in a banana or Pepsi. It is worth noting the following fact - the blood itself is destroyed under the influence of acids contained in fruits. If, purely hypothetically, we consume bananas and Pepsi with HIV-infected blood, then starting from the oral cavity under the influence of salivary enzymes, and then in the acidic environment of gastric juice, it is completely destroyed along with the viruses contained in it.