A 36-year-old man is being charged with three felonies, including transmission of HIV, after Oak Park police said he bit a male officer’s thumb and broke the skin, police said Wednesday.

Javier G. Flores, of the 400 block of South Maple Avenue, Oak Park, was arrested by police Friday outside Old Navy, 417 N. Harlem Ave., and has been charged with criminal transmission of HIV, aggravated battery of a police officer and retail theft. The department expects the officer to be safe from contracting the disease.

Police said they were responding to a call of a retail theft about 2 p.m. after Flores allegedly tried to conceal socks, a shirt and a belt under his clothes while in the changing room.

Flores was transported to the police department and became hostile while he was being processed later that evening, said Cmdr. LaDon Reynolds. He said the situation became physical when a male officer was transporting Flores from one room to another.

“The offender became agitated and aggressive,” Reynolds said. “When the officer tried to subdue him, the offender bit the officer on his right thumb.”

Reynolds said Flores notified police that he was HIV positive. The officer, who is not being identified, was transported to the hospital, where he was treated and released. He has since returned to work.

While Reynolds said those in the department expect that the officer will be OK, the bite was enough to justify a transmission of HIV charge.

“The subject was HIV-positive, which sustains the charge because he bit the officer and broke skin,” he said.

Transmission of HIV via a bite is highly unlikely, said Dr. Paul O’Keefe, a infectious disease specialist at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood. O’Keefe, who did not treat the officer, said the reason is that, while saliva does carry traces of the virus, it is in such low quantities that it is not considered harmful, which is why doctors say a HIV-positive person can kiss an uninfected person without any danger.

“The risk to the officer is extremely low, and I say that because it was from a person’s saliva, which typically doesn’t contain any blood,” he said.

The only risk would have been if the person doing the biting had blood in his mouth, perhaps from a recent injury. O’Keefe said the routine treatment is anti-HIV drugs for a month and then a test for the virus. But even in that scenario, O’Keefe estimates only a 0.3 percent chance of transmission.

“The chances of the officer being exposed to this person’s blood is quite small,” he said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control website, there have been documented cases of transmission because of a bite, but it is “very rare” and only occurred if there was “severe trauma with extensive tissue damage and the presence of blood.”

The officer’s injuries, meanwhile, were considered minor.

Flores is being held without bond, according to police.