19 School Kids Get HIV Drugs After Needle Stick
Nineteen elementary school kids who were pricked with a diabetes-testing needle by another student in a Philadelphia school last week are now taking strong HIV drugs after one of the children tested positive for the virus, officials said.
Health officials, however, have ruled out the possibility that the child who tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS could have been infected by the needle prick, the Associated Press reported.
The 8-year-old girl who stuck her schoolmates at Bayard Taylor Elementary School with her mother's needle on Wednesday was suspended and will probably be moved to another school, officials said. They were unsure why she pricked the students.
Although experts said the odds of the needle transmitting the virus to the other children were extremely low, the drugs would reduce the amount of the virus in their blood or slow the progress of the disease.
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