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“Welcome to HIV World", a note attached to a syringe full of HIV infected fluid in Recto Avenue.

Manila, Philippines – A story involving a student who received her dose of HIV while walking along Recto Avenue is currently making waves in social media.

The scary story was initially shared by a certain netizen named Jerremiah Kriziah Bataller. On her Facebook wall status, she posted the following message:

I just heard the craziest, sickest, scariest thing so far in my young life.
People, most especially students, know Recto as one of the busiest, most crowded places in Manila. A good market for cheap books, students flock to the area with hopes of saving money. But then after hearing this story, I don’t know if the money’s worth it.

An AMV student went to Recto to buy a book, and as she was walking with the crowd, she felt her arm grow a little heavier. When she looked to check, she saw a syringe plunged in her arm with a note that said “Welcome to the HIV world“. At first, she thought it was nothing; a prank made by attention-seekers. She decided to have herself checked in the UST Hospital, just in case. Her result was HIV positive.

It sounds like a horror story, I know. Almost unreal. But you can be sure I’ll be keeping myself away from crowded places for awhile.

As of writing, the post garnered 3,109 shares and 73 likes. The topic, however, was picked up by several amateur bloggers in the Philippines. Some of their articles already earned over 50,000 shares.

Some of the notable bloggers simply published an article and highlighted the threat rather than educating their readers. They captured a screenshot of the post and released it with a caption that says, “Welcome to HIV World, A Scary Syringe Threat in Recto“.

Meanwhile, the post of Bataller draws mixed reactions of several netizens. Several arguments spread online with some of the commenters clearly not convinced with the story. Some of them even said that such story started in the early 90s.

Here are some of the noticeable comments on the web regarding this urban legend.

Jonathan Eli Libut provided a sound argument and technically explained how a person can be infected with HIV.

There are really strangers who do such inhumane acts. So be careful going to crowded places. But to have yourself checked for HIV, it’s basic knowledge and procedure, you need to wait for a minimum of three months; they call this an incubation period. Because if you got HIV, and if you have yourself checked on that day you got the virus (or before the incubation period is done), there will be no concrete result, and the doctors will simply ask you to come back after three months, that’s the protocol. It will take a minimum of three months for the virus to be visible in one’s physiology. So I doubt this particular story is real, but again, as I mentioned earlier, such acts are real and horrendous. In this particular story, if I’d give an ounce of credibility, maybe she summarized it (that’s why she didn’t mention any time frame) and had herself checked based from the proper procedures.

What’s your take on this unverified story? Do you think that someone was deliberately trying to spread such disease in Recto with the use of a syringe full of HIV infected fluid?