How long can HIV live outside the body?

Question

How long can HIV live outside the body,
Lets say for instance...On somebody's hand,so thats in air
Lets just say a guy fingers a girl for a while,the girl has HIV or AIDS,how long could this virus live on his hand OUTSIDE the host til it is gone/dead
How long would it live on this persons "Hand"?

Answer 1

Scientists and medical authorities agree that HIV does not survive well outside the body, making the possibility of environmental transmission remote. HIV is found in varying concentrations or amounts in blood, semen, vaginal fluid, breast milk, saliva, and tears. To obtain data on the survival of HIV, laboratory studies have required the use of artificially high concentrations of laboratory-grown virus. Although these unnatural concentrations of HIV can be kept alive for days or even weeks under precisely controlled and limited laboratory conditions, CDC studies have shown that drying of even these high concentrations of HIV reduces the amount of infectious virus by 90 to 99 percent within several hours. Since the HIV concentrations used in laboratory studies are much higher than those actually found in blood or other specimens, drying of HIV-infected human blood or other body fluids reduces the theoretical risk of environmental transmission to that which has been observed - essentially zero. Incorrect interpretations of conclusions drawn from laboratory studies have in some instances caused unnecessary alarm.
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/qa/qa35.htm

Answer 2

Outside the body, HIV can survive for about 20 minutes. It has a very short life span when not in the human body. If it were in an airtight syringe, then it can survive from a very long time. That's how people were able to get HIV and AIDS from being drug users and sharing needles. Inside the medicine bottle, I doubt it would survive inside it for very long. The virus needs very specific conditions in order to survive. These conditionas are not suitable inside a medicine bottle. Basically, when HIV infected blood dries, if it has been spilled outside the body, then the risk of getting HIV from that blood drops down to 0%.

Answer 3

In lab settings with an exceedingly high viral count a few hours.. The only reason it does live outside the body is because it has moisture. If the area is dry then HIV becomes inactive/dead very rapidly. Fingering or mutual masturbation are not considered high risk activities. Wash the hand and the virus is gone.

See references:

Answer 4

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Answer 5

Once the virus is outside the body it dies rather quickly. Air will kill the virus within a few minutes. Washing your hands with soap and water will also kill the virus. HIV is one of the most fragile viruses there is.

Answer 6

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