Can You Get AIDS from Kissing?

Question: Can You Get AIDS from Kissing?

Teens often want to know if AIDS can be passed through kissing. In general, the answer is no.

Answer:

HIV is the virus that causes the disease, AIDS. The only way to get HIV is if you get certain body fluids of a person with HIV into your own body.

These fluids include:

• Blood
• Semen
• Vaginal Fluids
• Breast milk (from a mother to a baby)

The most common ways teens get HIV is through unprotected vaginal and anal sex and through sharing needles. Oral sex performed on a man is considered a low risk activity for contracting HIV.

Kissing on the other hand is usually considered safe as saliva does not pass HIV.

However, as About's Guide to AIDS explains:

Open-mouth kissing is considered a very low-risk activity for the transmission of HIV. However, prolonged open-mouth kissing could damage the mouth or lips and allow HIV to pass from an infected person to a partner and then enter the body through cuts or sores in the mouth.

Even so, this would be incrediably rare and kissing is not usually considered a risky activity.