AIDS: Risk of HIV Infection to Health Care Workers

Extract

Dr. Jaffe presented an update on the risk of HIV infection to health care workers. He noted that information has come from three sources: 1) analysis of national AIDS surveillance data: 2) prospective studies of injuries and exposures of health care workers: and 3) anecdotal reports.

The national AIDS surveillance data indicate that 5% of reported AIDS cases occur in health care workers; health care workers represent 5.7% of the US workforce. By itself, this would suggest that employment as a health care worker is not associated with a disproportionately large risk of AIDS. The health care workers with AIDS have an age and sex distribution that is similar to that of all AIDS patients; the health care workers with AIDS are more likely to be white, however. The health care workers with AIDS are more likely to he homosexual/bisexual men (73%) than are all AIDS patients (62%); conversely, they are less likely to admit to intravenous drug use.