Health care worker-to-patient transmission of hepatitis C virus in the health care setting: Many questions and few answers.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection represents a substantial risk to both, health care workers and patients. It is of major importance to detect health care workers with HCV infection and to establish regulations how to deal with infected individuals working in specific health care settings. Currently, there are no consistent recommendations, regulations or guidelines concerning prevention of health care worker-to-patient transmission of HCV. Questions arising include: Should health care workers be screened or tested individually on HCV infection and what kind of assay(s) should be used? When and how often should health care workers be tested? How should health care workers with HCV infection be managed? Based on these questions, this article reviews the most relevant published literature. Furthermore, suggestions for establishing a future common regulatory framework are provided.
Raggam
Reinhard B
RB
Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, Institute of Hygiene, Microbiology and Environmental Medicine, Medical University of Graz, Universitaetsplatz 4, 8010 Graz, Austria.
Rossmann
Angelika M
AM
Salzer
Helmut J F
HJ
Stauber
Rudolf E
RE
Kessler
Harald H
HH
D003428:Cross Infection / Q000635:transmission*; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006268:Health Facilities; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000635:transmission*; D006801:Humans; D017053:Infection Control / Q000379:methods; D017757:Infectious Disease Transmission, Professional-to-Patient / Q000517:prevention & control*