Is Cadbury products infected with HIV??

Social media may be a handy tool to connect and disseminate information with the near and dear, but it has also become the main source of rumors, especially about food poisoning. Now, a silly hoax claiming that Cadbury products are infected with HIV virus (AIDS) has been widely circulated on social media. 

A hoax message claiming to be reported by BBC News was in circulation a few days ago. The post warned the public not to eat Cadbury chocolates for a few weeks claiming that a Cadbury worker had contaminated the products with HIV infected blood. 

Earlier in 2015, a woman named Anna Aquavia posted on Facebook that "someone is injecting HIV positive blood into bananas and oranges," causing panic to many internet users. She had claimed that her sister's friend from Nebraska found blood in banana.

However, Washington Post reported that the pictures used in the post were originally posted by a woman from Colorado who was concerned on seeing red spots in her son's fruit. She had clearly mentioned that the bananas were "deformed."

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HIV won't transmit through food handled by HIV infected persons.

"You can't get HIV from consuming food handled by an HIV-infected person. Even if the food contained small amounts of HIV-infected blood or semen, exposure to the air, heat from cooking, and stomach acid would destroy the virus," said the CDC in a note.

However, it said HIV could "spread by eating food that has been pre-chewed by an HIV-infected person" but only in rare cases. It went on to say that the "contamination occurs when infected blood from a caregiver's mouth mixes with food while chewing. The only known cases are among infants."