The Nation : Workers’ Hepatitis Risk Exceeds AIDS

Hepatitis B infections acquired on the job kill about 200 health care workers each year, posing a far greater occupational hazard than the AIDS virus, experts said at a national conference in Washington sponsored by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. Hepatitis B is caused by a virus much more contagious than the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. Dr. Harold S. Margolis of the federal Centers for Disease Control said that a vaccine that prevents the infection has not gained wide use among health workers and other high risk groups. Dr. David K. Henderson, coordinator of AIDS activities at the National Institutes of Health’s research hospital, said 22 U.S. health care workers are known to have become infected with the AIDS virus through needle sticks or exposure to the blood of infected patients. An estimated 12,000 health care workers become infected with the hepatitis B virus annually through such means, he said.