Getting ready for AIDS patients

As of January 1988, over 51,000 cases of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has been reported to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Nearly 90 percent occurred in individuals between 20 and 49 years of age. Approximately 90 percent were in males. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, is transmitted by sexual contact, by exposure to infected blood or blood components, and perinatally from mother to neonate. In the healthcare setting, blood is the body fluid that has been implicated in transmission of HIV to healthcare workers. In 1983, the CDC began an ongoing study to assess the risk to healthcare workers of acquiring HIV infection. Results of the CDC and other prospective studies of healthcare workers indicate that the risk of infection following percutaneous exposure to blood of an HIV-infected patient is less than one percent. CDC recommendations for the prevention of HIV transmission in the healthcare setting emphasize use of universal blood and body fluid precautions. Healthcare workers should consider all patients to be potentially infected with HIV, and appropriate barrier precautions should be used routinely by healthcare workers in caring for all patients in settings where the possibility of exposure to blood or other body fluids is anticipated. Continued emphasis must also be placed on the prevention of needlesticks and other injuries caused by sharp objects.