Claim of AIDS spreading in Texas pool defies science, evidence | Fact check

AIDS spreading in Texas community pool is impossible | Fact check  USA TODAY

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May 11, 2024 - 15:00
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Claim of AIDS spreading in Texas pool defies science, evidence | Fact check

Claim of AIDS spreading in Texas pool defies science, evidence | Fact check

The claim: People contracted AIDS from a swimming pool in Texas

An April 27 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shares a screenshot that includes a map of a neighborhood in Arlington, Texas, captioned “No pools for me this summer.”

The screenshot reads, “HOA Pool Infected with AIDS. … 4th person tested positive this week. Make sure everyone that visited this pool gets checked. The pool wasn’t cared for and chemicals were not used.”

The post was shared more than 200 times in a week and a half.

Our rating: False

This is impossible. While a report was made to at least one government agency claiming it had happened at the pool, it was investigated by the city of Arlington and found to have no basis. Decades of research have shown that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, cannot survive in the water and cannot be transmitted in hot tubs or pools.

Fragile virus cannot survive in water

Medical experts and researchers have known for decades that HIV cannot be transmitted through water since the virus cannot survive long outside of the body. Most transmission comes from unprotected sex or shared needles or syringes, although it can also spread in other ways, according to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The Human Immunodeficiency Virus – HIV – is a fragile virus that cannot survive outside the human body for long. Therefore, it cannot spread through water or by sharing swimming pools, hot tubs or other recreational facilities,” Douglas Loveday, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, told USA TODAY in an email.

The CDC had a campaign in 1991 stressing that HIV and AIDS were not transmissible through routine day-to-day contact, with posters including one emphasizing that AIDS could not be contracted from a public pool. A 1993 study specifically looking at how long HIV could survive in water found cells containing the virus could not be detected after five minutes in tap water.

Medical centers at Johns Hopkins, Stanford and the University ofRochester all state on their websites that HIV cannot be spread through community swimming pools.

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