Transmission of hepatitis C virus by occupational percutaneous injuries in South Korea

Korea is an endemic area of hepatitis. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections caused by occupational percutaneous injuries are a serious problem for healthcare workers and there has been a gradual increase in the number of HCV infections. We therefore determined the transmission rate of HCV after occupational percutaneous injury. This was a retrospective cohort study reviewing all occupational blood exposure reports made between January 1, 2004, and December 31, 2008, at a university-affiliated acute care hospital. Over the 5-year study period, there were 1,516 accidents of occupational exposure to blood; of these, 327 (21.6%) were to the blood of HCV-infected patients and 3 (0.9%) healthcare workers became infected with HCV (95% CI 0.6–8.8). In Korea, although the bloodborne accidents leading to exposure to HCV occurred frequently (21.6%), the transmission rate was very low (0.92%)

Discharge characteristics of a mercury free flat fluorescent lamp without the dielectric layers

We developed a mercury free Flat Fluorescent Lamp (FFL) with a high luminance by using the same discharge mode as PDP. Our FFL has the simple structure where the glass substrates are used as the dielectric layer. The panel has a striped line shape of 7-inch diagonal size. The Xe-Ne-He mixture gas was used to generate the plasma, and the gas discharge characteristics under both total gas pressure and partial gas pressure were investigated. The panel showed a maximum high luminance 7,270 cd/m(2) under biasing 20 kHz pulse of 3 kVclose1