Subject: Very Few Workers Exposed to AIDS Showed Infection 
Date: Published: 10/26/88 53 lines
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Technology:  
    Very Few Workers
    Exposed to AIDS
    Showed Infection
    ----  
    By Jerry E. Bishop
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    Of 1,200 doctors, nurses and hospital workers who were
 accidentally exposed to AIDS-infected blood in the last five
 years, only four subsequently tested positive for the AIDS
 virus, federal researchers reported.
    The latest results of a survey, begun in 1983 by the
 federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, centered on
 health care workers who had been accidentally exposed to
 blood from patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome,
 under circumstances that would have allowed the blood to
 penetrate the workers' skins.
    Eighty percent of the exposures involved accidental pricks
 by hypodermic needles that had been used on AIDS patients.
 Another 8% involved cuts with sharp instruments, and 7%
 involved exposures of open wounds on the workers to
 contaminated blood.  Almost 66% of the exposed workers were
 nurses, 14% were doctors or medical students, 2% were
 housekeeping and maintenance employees and the remainder were
 laboratory technicians and phlebotomists (workers who draw
 blood from patients).
    All four of the workers who subsequently tested positive
 for the deadly virus had suffered accidental needle pricks.
 In two of these cases, the worker was accidentally pricked by
 a fellow worker during attempts to resuscitate a patient, the
 centers reported in this week's issue of the New England
 Journal of Medicine.  The other two workers accidentally
 pricked themselves with the contaminated needles.
    The centers had details on three of the four cases showing
 that in the first several days after the exposure, blood
 tests were negative for AIDS-virus infection.  But each of the
 three workers later developed fever, chills and muscle aches.
 Several weeks afterwards, they tested positive for AIDS virus
 infection.
    The centers found that 37% of the accidental exposures
 could have been prevented if the workers had been following
 recommended safety procedures in handling AIDS-contaminated
 blood and instruments.

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