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.
Antoniello
S
S
Cattedra di Medicina Interna. Università degli Studi di Napoli II Facoltà di Medicina.
Auletta
M
M
Cerini
R
R
Memoli
A
A
Cigolari
S
S
Quagliata
L
L
Macchia
V
V
Cacciatore
L
L
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