sex

[vikrant]

is there any chance of getting aids by smooching or kissing?

[Buenchico]

It's both a 'yes'and 'no' answer here!

AIDS can, at least theoretically, be transferred by any body fluids so, obviously, this includes saliva. It's mainly for this reason that first-aiders are taught to use some kind of mask when giving the 'kiss of life' (although, of course, this helps protect against other diseases as well). Having said that, there have been hundreds of thousands of situations, throughout the world, where the kiss of life has been given without such protection and there has never been a recorded case of the infection being transferred by this means. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, there has never been any recorded case of HIV being transferred by saliva but it still remains a theoretical possibilty.

Chris

[joko]

if the person had open sores or bleeding gums I suppose its possible, but i read once that you would have to drink about a pint of saliva to be at risk - bleurgh!

[stevie21]

Yep, you'd have to drink about a bucket of saliva to catch it exclusively from there. The only real risk in this case is from an open cut and for it to be transmitted by a different bodily fluid.

I'm sure I've read that if you get a pinprick from an infected needle (without its contents being injected into you) there's a 1 in 200 chance of contracting the disease.

Despite all of this good news, it's wise to be very careful and do whatever you can to avoid HIV and all the other STDs.