With the start of the school year, many parents are once again fearful that their children may contract HIV through playground rough-and-tumble with infected children.

However, HIV/AIDS expert Professor Jerry Coovadia says “the chances of this are close to zero” as children “do not transmit the virus sexually as adults do”.

“As a parent myself, I understand the concern but it is an overreaction,” says Coovadia, who is head of research at the Nelson Mandela Medical School at the University of Natal, Durban.

“The only possibility of infection is through direct blood-to-blood contact,” he says, adding the every day health workers are in far more intimate contact with HIV-infected children yet do not get infected.

Researcher Peter Badcock-Walters adds that there are not many HIV positive children at primary schools as “very, very few children infected at birth will survive to enter school, while comparatively few children are likely to have been infected between the ages of five and 12”.

The only way the virus could be transmitted amongst young children is from bodily contact with an infected child’s open, bleeding wound, adds Badcock-Walters, who is research associate with the University of Natal’s Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division.

“But HIV is a weak virus and cannot survive very long outside the human body, so even if an infected and bleeding child was encountered, the chances of infection from spilt blood would be remote. Simultaneous contact with an open wound on another child, while theoretically possible, is also very unlikely.”

However, cautions Badcock-Walters, the chances of secondary school pupils contracting HIV/AIDS is much higher, “given acknowledged levels of experimentation with sex and drugs”.

“If parents and teachers rise to the challenge of providing clear, honest and accurate information about sexual behaviour and personal values, particularly during the ‘window of hope’ period [five to 12-year-old age group], the chances of prevention in the secondary system will be substantially enhanced,” he concludes.