SHARJAH, 4 June 2005 — Doctors have come forward to reject as unfounded suggestions that eating shawarma tainted with the blood of an infected man causes AIDS. Hoax e-mail messages have been doing the rounds in the UAE saying that a boy caught AIDS in Dubai after eating a shawarma tainted by the blood of an infected cook.
“Dear all, beware of eating shawarma on the roadside,” says the message which tells the story of a 10-year-old boy who was diagnosed with AIDS 15 days after eating a shawarma. It says the cook had a bleeding injury on his finger, and while cutting the meat blood from the finger spread on the food. The cook’s condition was established when doctors traced the boy’s case to the shawarma shop, it claims.
The e-mail contains a plea to forward the message to friends and not to eat shawarma again. It does not mention the place where the alleged incident happened, but it named the hospital and a recipient forwarded the mail to the hospital to find out the truth. Doctors at the hospital immediately rejected the claim as fake. But the messages caused alarm among the public, and some shawarma shops reported a marked decline in sales.
Doctors point out that it generally takes six to 10 years from the point of infection to develop AIDS if left untreated and that the virus cannot be transmitted by ingesting tainted blood.
AIDS can be transmitted only through HIV-contaminated blood in a blood transfusion or through needles that are contaminated with infected blood or through wounds caused by infected razor blades or other sharp instruments. Tests have proved that AIDS could not be transmitted through sharing water, food, plates, cups, spoons and toilet seats.
