Nurses at risk for occupationally acquired blood-borne virus infection at a South African academic hospital

Aim. We aimed to ascertain if there had been any improvement in thenumber of nurses being immunised against hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in a large academic hospital in which, 10 years previously,only 30.6% of the nurses were immune to infection with the virus,and to ascertain the incidence of infection with hepatitis C virus(HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in these nurses.Methods. We studied 170 predominantly black nurses.Their blood was tested for the presence of active or past HBVinfection using appropriate immunoassays, HCV infection bychromatographic immunoassays confirmed by polymerase chainreaction assays, and HIV using a rapid test confirmed by enzymelinkedimmunosorbent assays.Results. Serum of 89 (52.4%) nurses was positive for hepatitisB surface antibody (anti-HBs). Of these nurses 18 said that theyhad not received the vaccine; the serum of 9 of these was positivefor anti-hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) as well as anti-HBs,indicating natural infection with the virus. Of the nurses positivefor anti-HBs, 89 were tested for anti-HBc; 28.2% tested positive foranti-HBc. Three nurses gave dates of immunisation that fell outsideof their nursing careers; 3 (1.8%) were actively infected with thevirus; 2 (1.8%) were infected with HCV; 10 nurses (5.9%) werepositive for HIV.Conclusion. Nurses at this academic hospital remain at high riskof work-related HBV infection

Nurses at risk for occupationally acquired blood-borne virus infection at a South African academic hospital

Aim. We aimed to ascertain if there had been any improvement in the number of nurses being immunised against hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in a large academic hospital in which, 10 years previously, only 30.6% of the nurses were immune to infection with the virus, and to ascertain the incidence of infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in these nurses. Methods. We studied 170 predominantly black nurses. Their blood was tested for the presence of active or past HBV infection using appropriate immunoassays, HCV infection by chromatographic immunoassays confirmed by polymerase chain reaction assays, and HIV using a rapid test confirmed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Results. Serum of 89 (52.4%) nurses was positive for hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs). Of these nurses 18 said that they had not received the vaccine; the serum of 9 of these was positive for anti-hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) as well as anti-HBs, indicating natural infection with the virus. Of the nurses positive for anti-HBs, 89 were tested for anti-HBc; 28.2% tested positive for anti-HBc. Three nurses gave dates of immunisation that fell outside of their nursing careers; 3 (1.8%) were actively infected with the virus; 2 (1.8%) were infected with HCV; 10 nurses (5.9%) were positive for HIV. Conclusion. Nurses at this academic hospital remain at high risk of work-related HBV infection