About a year ago a physics teacher of mine told me he wouldn’t be suprised if AID’s became airbourne in about 10 years or so. Could this happen within ten years? How exactly does a disease become airbourne? And if it’s possible what would this mean for man-kind?
The CDC has a good fact sheet on transmission methods which should address some of your concerns about HIV eventually becoming airborne.
HIV infects mostly CD4 cells, and it’s transmission is dependent upon infected CD4 cells getting from one host inside another potential host. Early in the pandemic there was some concern expressed by some surgeons that HIV might be spread from patients to surgeons during bone cutting procedures by aerosolised blood (blood was known then to be an effective medium for transmitting the virus, as it is now). Although those concerns were thought to be unjustified by most experts, the CDC and other public health bodies continue to investigation all cases of infection where the means of transmission is unknown, partly so that if a new transmission route does evolve there’s an “early warning” system in place.
Given that HIV is dependent upon infected CD4 cells getting from on person inside another in sufficient concentration for infection to occur, it’s difficult to see how HIV could mutate in a way which would allow for airborne or even droplet transmission.
Did your physics teacher give any indication of what specific changes he envisaged happening to the structure of the virus itself which would enable this to occur?