HIV Transmitted by Kissing?

Although the saliva of HIV-infected persons is known to contain small quantities of the virus, kissing is usually discounted as an important means of HIV transmission. The CDC reports a case in which "deep kissing" presumably transmitted HIV from a man to his uninfected female partner.

The couple was enrolled in a California study of heterosexual couples discordant for the virus. The man had late-stage HIV infection, while the woman was repeatedly seronegative until she experienced a syndrome compatible with acute seroconversion in August 1994 and subsequently tested HIV positive.

Although the couple reported frequent vaginal intercourse, they said they always used condoms and had noted no breaks or slippage around the time the woman became i…