LETTERS

The September JOURNAL article by John L. Riggs indicates that AIDS cannot be transmitted through the water route. However, within the table of contents page summary and the article, it is stated the risk is essentially zero the AIDS virus can survive optimal water treatment procedures. The writer asks if this implies that AIDS can be transmitted in nonoptimal treatment drinking water. Also, as the only modes of HIV transmission to date were specified, the author does not see the relationship to drinking water treatment processes. To the writer's knowledge, HIV cannot survive outside a body‐fluid environment and even if it found its way to water sources, it would die on contact with the atmosphere as it is an anaerobic virus. Mr. Riggs responds that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not infect by the oral route, it infects by gaining entry to susceptible cells within the bloodstream (e.g., through cuts, abrasions, etc.). Therefore if the virus was present in a raw drinking water source and survived the usual water treatment processes, an infection could only occur by physical contact with the water by a person who has open cuts or abrasions–not by ingestion. Such an event has not yet occurred and probably never will, however it is scientifically impossible to establish that this will never take place. The growth and reproduction of a virus cannot be described as aerobic or anaerobic since viruses reproduce only within living cells. Depending on the virus in question, it can often remain infectious outside the living cell for a period of time. HIV is a relatively unstable virus and is susceptible to drying and elevated temperatures.