THAT INDIAN BOY WHO GOT AIDS FROM A PINEAPPLE

If you use WhatsApp, then you are no stranger to the kinds of messages that come to you from people you know as well as appear in groups you belong to that notify you at the beginning that they have been forwarded as received and then enjoin you at the end to please share…so that God will bless you, or so that misfortune will avoid you, or so that you will save a soul…or something more or less ludicrous.

Well, there is this group I belong to, and a few days ago, someone posted this message:

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(Public Interest)

Dear All, It's in India, Karnataka, Bangalore, a 10-year old boy, had eaten pineapple about 15 days back, and fell sick, from the day he had eaten. Later when he had his health check done, doctors diagnosed that he had AIDS!!!

His parents couldn't believe it. Then the

entire family underwent a medical checkup. None of them suffered from AIDS. So the doctors checked again with the boy if he had eaten out. The boy said 'Yes'. He did that evening. He ate pineapple.

Immediately a group from the hospital went to the pineapple vendor to check. They found the pineapple seller had a cut on his finger while cutting the pineapple; his blood had spread into the fruit.

When they had his blood checked, the guy was suffering from AIDS which he himself was NOT aware.

Unfortunately the boy is now infected and is now suffering from it.

Please take care while u eat on the road side (particularly Water Melon, Pineapple and Pawpaw (cut to size and packed in Nylon)) and pls fwd this mail to your dear ones

Please do take care.

Please Forward This Mail To All The Persons You Know As Your Message may save someone's life today💞

Dr Sushant Jadhav,

CMO, Civil Hospital

Mumbai

This message 📮 is from a group of

Doctors in India:

(forwarded in public interest)

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According to this message, purportedly from a doctor, a boy ate a pineapple that he got, maybe bought, from a pineapple vendor, and then he fell sick from the very day he ate the pineapple. 15 days or so later, doctors conducted a health check for him and found he had AIDS. AIDS o, not HIV, but AIDS. Ehen.

Then the doctors who found that he had AIDS checked to see whether he had any family members who had AIDS too, and when they couldn’t find any family member with AIDS, they now started doing a dietary recall. They wanted to know what he had eaten and where. As an investigation for AIDS. They were in India o, yet they were not interested in whether he had been raped…they were interested in what he had eaten 15 days ago.

Then the 10-year old remembered that 15 days ago he ate a pineapple that he got from a pineapple vendor. Fantastic 10-year old. He remembers a lot from 15 days ago.

This pineapple vendor had AIDS, and somehow spread his AIDS into the pineapple which eventually infected the boy and got him sick that very same day, only to be diagnosed 15 or so days later.

Story story.

Now for a few facts.

AIDS is the name given to the assemblage of diseases that follow an uncontrolled infection with the HIV virus. The HIV virus infection itself is a slow infection that takes months to years to manifest into clinical symptoms. And in many cases, someone who has just been infected with HIV will not test positive for HIV till about 4 weeks (28 whole days o) after infection. Usual time it takes for HIV to be detected by standard testing after infection is 4 – 12 weeks (that is, 1 – 3 months).

HIV infection may be passed from pregnant mother to unborn child, from a newly infected, lactating mother to her suckling child, from a man or woman to his or her sexual partners, through sharing of sharps – whether by choice or inadvertently or even accidentally – through blood transfusions, and through direct exchange of blood and other bodily fluids..

It is not common for HIV to be transmitted from one person to another through a pineapple – even if the pineapple has some of the blood from the cut finger of an infected person. Even if the person comes from India.

Avoiding pineapples and watermelons will not take you any further from HIV infection than your current lifestyle already is.

Let us be careful what we reshare on social media. The above story is an example of the dangerously inaccurate things we see and repost on social media.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against a pineapple hawker or a poor, innocent pineapple.