A couple of weeks ago I was walking down the street and this guy had a McDonald's bag. He dumped the fries out of the little fry bag and then threw it on the ground. Litter annoys me, so I picked it up and crumpled it into my hand. There wasn't a garbage can until a few blocks later, so then I threw it away. 10 minutes later I got back to my apartment, washed my hands with some sanitizer but may have not done a thorough job, and was watching TV and noticed there was some dried blood on my finger. I'm not sure if it was from self-consciously picking at a bug bite I had or if it could've been on the guy's fry bag that I picked up. I am worried that the dried blood may have gotten into a cut I had on my finger. I also had a cut on my lip. I am worried because all I have read is that dried blood "after several hours" is not infectious, but what if it dried within like 15 minutes and then got into a cut?

Hello,

Dude, it was McDonald's fries ?. The red blotch on your fingers was probably ketchup. Even if it were dried blood, your HIV risk would be completely nonexistent.

Stop trying to supersize a risk that doesn't even exist!

Stay well.

Dr. Bob