Transmission of HIV from infected health-care workers to patients

The five patients of the Florida dentist remain the only cases in which HIV transmission from an infected health-care worker to patients during invasive procedures had been reported by 1991. In this instance, neither the precise mode of HIV transmission to these patients nor the reasons for transmission to multiple patients are known. However, even in the HBV outbreaks that have been investigated, the causes of increased transmissibility by the health-care worker are not always clear, and may include variations in the procedures performed, surgical or dental techniques used, infection control precautions taken, titer of the infecting agent, and the susceptibility of the patients to infection. The investigation of the Florida dentist's practice is ongoing. Additional studies of the patients of other infected health-care workers are being conducted in an attempt to answer some of the remaining questions about the risk and circumstances which allow the transmission of HIV from infected health-care workers to patients.