Hepatitis B virus infection among health care workers at an urban teaching hospital in southern Italy: a low occupational hazard?
A prevalence study of HBV serologic markers was carried out among hospital employees of ten departments of the Second School of Medicine in Naples, an urban area with a high prevalence of HBV infection. Departments and occupational categories were selected to represent a spectrum of different exposure to B virus infection. Workers in a large electronic plant in the same geographical area were screened as controls. HBsAg prevalence was 4.8% in the hospital community and 4.0% in control group. It rises to 4.3% in the Campania Region, where all screened workers live, and in some specific areas of the same region it rises to 12%. But no significant difference among seropositivities for at least 1 marker of HBV, considered to be a better indicator of occupational hazard, was found among personnel of different departments or belonging to different occupational categories. None of the occupational and non-occupational risk factors studied was found to be significantly associated with HBV infection. Two years later, an incidence study was carried out among susceptible subjects. Seropositivity for 1 marker was 2.2% among hospital workers and 2.8% in the control group. These figures are lower than the annual attack rate (5%) required for an acceptable cost-benefit ratio of vaccination against hepatitis B. Our results indicate that in a geographical area with HBV endemicity the occupational hazard for B virus infection is low in hospital workers because of the high number of the high number of immunized subjects and the contacts with infected people out of the hospital.
Cattedra di Medicina Interna. Università degli Studi di Napoli II Facoltà di Medicina.
S
S
Antoniello
M
M
Auletta
R
R
Cerini
A
A
Memoli
S
S
Cigolari
L
L
Quagliata
V
V
Macchia
L
L
Cacciatore
D005190:Family; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens / Q000032:analysis*; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006786:Hospitals, Urban; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D010564:Personnel, Hospital; D012307:Risk Factors; D012698:Serologic Tests; D014505:Urban Population
D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens