I **believed** that HIV is a rather fragile virus, but I **knew** little, so 
I decided to look it up before commenting.

From the WHO page http://www.who.int/hiv/abouthiv/en/ :

"HIV is easily killed outside the human body and therefore can only be 
transmitted directly from person to person, either by sexual contact, 
exchange of blood or body fluids or from mother to child. Sexual 
transmission of the HIV is relatively inefficient and repeated unprotected 
exposures are normally required."

Then there is something from the CDC, quoted on 
http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/insite?page=ask-01-10-20 :

"Scientists and medical authorities agree that HIV does not survive well in 
the environment, making the possibility of environmental transmission 
remote. (snip)
In order to obtain data on the survival of HIV, laboratory studies have 
required the use of artificially high concentrations of laboratory-grown 
virus. Although these unnatural concentrations of HIV can be kept alive 
under precisely controlled and limited laboratory conditions, CDC studies 
have shown that drying of even these high concentrations of HIV reduces the 
number of infectious viruses by 90 to 99 percent within several hours. Since 
the HIV concentrations used in laboratory studies are much higher than those 
actually found in blood or other specimens, drying of HIV- infected human 
blood or other body fluids reduces the theoretical risk of environmental 
transmission to that which has been observed--essentially zero."

But here is an interesting part:
"HIV is sensitive to fluctuations in temperature and the presence of oxygen. 
One place that HIV has been know to survive in is drug injection syringes 
since these are airtight and often contain blood from the injector."

I would like to know more about how long that survival was....I now gather 
that DRYING and HEAT and OXYGEN denature HIV, but what about when it remains 
wet?  Do pumps remain wet enough inside?  And those that are air tight 
wouldn't be getting milk inside anyway, would they?   Is there as much HIV 
in infected breast milk as in blood??  More to learn, though I suspect that 
good research would show it is not an issue in pumps.  There are possibly 
other more infectious things in there, like mould and bacteria!

The different types of hepatitis viruses make that question tricky as well. 
I will settle on investigating Hep B for now, which for some reason I have 
always feared more than any other:

From the CDC  http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/b/bfaq.htm
"Hepatitis B virus can survive outside the body at least 7 days. During that 
time, the virus can still cause infection if it enters the body of a person 
who is not infected."
"All blood spills - including those that have already dried - should be 
cleaned and disinfected with a mixture of bleach and water (one part 
household bleach to 10 parts water). Gloves should always be used when 
cleaning up any blood spills. Even dried blood can present a risk to 
others."

Certainly doesn't sound like the virus could live for months to me, but I 
agree, it's easy to keep worrying about it.  Would a test now show that 
there has been an infection at this stage.... what about the "window 
period"?  Common sense tells me that the incidence of either virus in USA (I 
assume that's where the mother is) is too low, and perhaps lower still that 
the infected person would be using a breast pump.

Best wishes
Jacquie Nutt IBCLC

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