HIV in nursery

[worriedperson]

AIBU to worry about this?
The guides I have read all say there is no risk of infection as long as proper hygiene procedures are carried out.
However, the staff, although good in other ways, are not that hygiene-conscious, for example, they send children home in wet pants, having not noticed they have had an accident.
Is there any real risk of catching it?
Also, what if one child bites another?

It makes me sad that me and other people like me are still social lepers who cannot be honest about our situations and we provoke fear.

That makes me very sad.

would you not prefer people to find out the truth by asking though, rather than hold onto their unjust fears?

It is sad.

I can only relate it to my experience of mental illness.

I suffer badly from cyclical depression and you would think it was catching! Mums at school who know about it and so their dcs can't come to play. Awkward conversations. Having to justify myself when I've been having a down spell.

Its not the same as you - i really feel for you! But there are times that you would think depression was catching!!!

Re the op I think all nurseries should have practices in place to reduce the risk of infection even if no child has been identified as having a bbv or more easily transmissable illness.

The reasons for that are simple:

1. Good practice makes good habbits because

1. A child could have a condition no one, including them and their family, knows about.

So to answer you - no you shouldn't be worried about an HIV positive child, but you should be worried about a nursery that has such lax hygiene standards that the risk of catching any illness is increased.

LadyAnonomous it is not everyone that is so ignorant about bbv. I have a friend who had Hep C and the only thoughts I've had about it were how awful it was when his treatment wasn't working and his liver function was reduced. And once he got experimental meds that seem to be working I've not even thought about it until this thread. His being hep c+ that is. I've thought about him but only the normal stuff like meeting for lunch etc. I hope that restores your faith a little bit

Not had but has. He's still got it and he's still my friend.

If this had nothing to do with idle gossip then a thread in general health asking how is hiv transmitted? would have been better than this.

There was no need to mention this poor child who may or may not be HIV+. What if another poster thinks they recognise the situation and decide that the rumours must be true?

Ladyanonymous, I read your posts with interest but I don't think it is only blood born infections that provoke fear. When the swine flu scare was at its peak, mothers I know were freaking out. A friend of mine who went to Mexico was shunned on her return. And I was insane with anxiety when my DD was born because there was a rotovirus outbreak. The hospital banned all under 5's from the maternity ward and I think they were right to. Now, in the US where i live, they are teaching non-mouth-to-mouth resusitation because so many people won't have contact with strangers. People have a not entirely irrational fear of illness, that's a human instinct and the OP was asking for information.

I do feel the OP has been horribly attacked because this was about HIV for anonymously asking for information and other people's experiences and opinions. That is the whole point of MN isn't it?

Shinyandnew - the OP name-changed and gave no identifying info whatsoever. She was careful not to. There is no possible way this nursery could have been identified. The nursery situation was the whole point of the post so she had to mention that it was a communal childcare setting.

Other people made up details of what the situation might be and then used these made-up details to attack the OP.

I agree with you ShinyandNew - this is a wholly inappropriate topic for AIBU. And that's what's made me cross (plus the whole gossipy tone of the OP's follow up post).

Ladybiscuit, you really shouldn't call people 'dolts'

and I am sure that the person you named in an earlier post would be so pleased to be identifiable on a national forum as being HIV+, given that you have personal photograhs on your profile.

Anyone who recognises those will probably now be able to make a guess to who this person is.

I would suggest you have it deleted.

You're right FA - I apologise for the word dolt. But no I won't ask for my friend's details to be deleted - he isn't ashamed, he has nothing to hide and is very open about it. I shall hide my profile though, thanks for reminding me.

I dislike ignorance and prejudice very much as is probably clear from my posts :)

I don't know quite what to make of this thread. I have to admit that my knee-jerk reaction to the OP was to think "how ignorant" and speculate in my own mind that it probably was the case that a child from a country with high HIV rates had joined the nursery.
However, the more I think about it, the more I can understand the OP's concerns. It is a scary, scary disease and I think the information that a child at my child's nursery had was HIV positive would probably give me a bit of an "eek" moment. I would, however, get over it pretty quickly as I know a fair bit about transmission risks (used to temp at the occupational health department of a hospital while at uni and currently have a number of clients with BBVs) and also because I have absolute faith in my nursery's ability to mitigate any small risk.
Howver, if I already had concerns about the standards at the nursery I might have more lingering worries.
I think if the original question had been phrased more along the lines of concern about the nursery's ability to deal with risk, rather than concern about the risk itself, the OP might have got a bit less grief.
What I would be interested to know (unless I have missed the reply to this question) is how exactly this information got out. If it has come from a credible source (member of nursery staff, parent of child in question etc) that is one thing. Howver, if it really is just a case of Chinese whispers and no-one knows where the ion came from originally, then I have a little less sympathy with the OP's position.
It's funny that HIV is still the bogey-man of diseases. Scary though it is, it is TB that really worries me - we have drug resistant strains popping up, outbreaks in various parts of London and a lot of people dropping through the treatment network. I have had a number of clients recently where I have not been allowed to go into the cell to talk to them due to TB.

Have not read the whole thread, but wrt the biting, I used to take blood from children with hiv, and was always warned when children with a particulary high viral load came in, as a bite from them would be more likely to pass on the virus, they would also be more likely to have open sores in their mouth, usually, these kids were very ill and wouldnt be in nursery though.

I am very surprised that you have been informed a child with hiv has joined your nursery though, I have no idea if there are any children with hiv at either our nursery or school, theres a fair chance there is in our case, but staff should be trained to take universal precautions when any child bleeds or bites another, as somebody said very near the beginning, hep c is a much bigger worry and much more infectious than hiv.

Has LadyBiscuit come back and clarified whether anyone with a question for the collective wisdom of mumsnet must Google it first?

And is this actually mumsnet policy - because if so, I missed the memo!

Not sure if this has been mentioned but - how does the OP know she hasn't met the mum of the allegedly + child?

I would still like to know how you know a particular child has HIV. Could you answer please OP?

knackered cow yes but hep B can be transmitted thru biting...

The prevalence of hep B in the UK is considered too low to be worth vaccinating the population, but due to immigration into the UK from countries with a higher prevalence this is likely to change. Hepatologists have been lobbying the government for ages to get the hep B vaccine included in the childhood imms programme, but so far, no luck.

ladyanonymous good luck with the inf/rbv btw