CDC reports three women diagnosed with HIV after 'vampire facial'
Three women who got "vampire facials" at a spa in New Mexico were diagnosed with HIV, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed.
These cases would be the first documented ones of transmission of the virus via cosmetic injection.
According to the health center's Morbidity and Mortality Report, a woman in her 40s was told she had HIV in 2018 even though she had no known risk factors. However, she was exposed to needles from cosmetic platelet-rich plasma (PRP) microneedling facials (also known as vampire facials). Two other patients who were diagnosed also received the treatment in 2018.
"Evidence suggests that contamination from an undetermined source at the spa during spring and summer 2018 resulted in HIV-1 transmission to these three patients," the CDC said.
The agency's investigation also found that the New Mexico spa was operating under "unsafe infection control practice." The spa closed later in 2018 with the owner pleading guilty to practicing without a license.
As its name suggests, vampire facials involve blood as a sample is drawn from your arm. Then, the blood is placed into a centrifuge to extract your platelets. The blood with a high concentration of platelets will then be reinjected into you.
This treatment is believed to make its patients have younger-looking skin, as per the American Academy of Dermatology Association.
Vampire facials blew up, too, in 2013 after Kim Kardashian posted a selfie post-treatment wherein her face was covered in blood.
The reality TV star later said that she regrets the procedure as it was a "super uncomfortable experience. "It was really rough and painful for me. It was honestly the most painful thing ever! It's the one treatment that I'll never do again," she wrote on her website.
HIV, human immunodeficiency virus, attacks a person's immune system and is spread through unprotected sexual contact, transmitted by a mother to her baby, and through the sharing of needles and syringes. While there is no effective cure yet for HIV, it can be controlled and people with the virus can still lead long, healthy lives.