Question: Hello there,

I work at a hotel and obviously there are occasional mishaps and spills even though I do not work in maintenance or janitorial work. Last night, well into the evening (about 3-4am), I had to unload a few items in the kitchen and I noticed what looked like dried blood on the door. It was dark red with what looked like a black/dark brown lining. I did not make direct contact with it as I made sure to open the door on any part that wasn't tainted by the stain (I have a bit of cracked skin and my hands are also dry from constant purell usage)--but my work jacket/uniform may have brushed against it. I then took the measure of spraying the door from quite a few inches away with Lysol spray. It did little to change the color of the stain but what dripped down on the door was dark brown ish in tone.

I also occasionally come into contact with towels (although always folded and seemingly washed/fresh) that occasionally look as though they have extraneous red threads on them but this could also just be the stitching. In any event, these have been sitting around for several minutes if not hours.

Assuming, while admittedly being more than a little hypochondriacal myself, that any of these cases were in fact dried blood and the person that caused the stain was HIV+ and they weren't on antiretroviral medication or had any sort of viral load--would this in any way pose a conceivable risk? I imagine the fact that each of these theoretical risks are also heavily exposed to oxygen/light for any time frame between a few minutes to several hours would also very much reduce any sort of risk of exposure.