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Comment from the CDC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

David M. Bell*
Affiliation:
Hospital Infections Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia

Extract

Dr. Glatt makes some thoughtful observations, and his recommendations are similar in many respects to those developed by the Public Health Service (PHS) with advice from expert consultants. However, the PHS did not recommend that new antiretroviral drugs be used routinely to treat lower-risk exposures, because relatively limited data are available on the safety and tolerability of the newer drugs and because the overwhelming majority of workers with lower-risk exposures will not become infected. (The average risk of human immunodeficiency virus [HIV] transmission is 0.3% after a percutaneous exposure to HIV-infected blood and less than that for a mucous membrane or skin exposure.)

Type
Readers' Forum
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1996 

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References

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Update: provisional Public Health Service recommendations for chemoprophylaxis after occupational exposure to HIV. MMWR 1996;45:468472.Google Scholar
2. Henderson, DK. HIV-1 in the health care setting. In: Mandell, GL, Bennett, JE, Dolin, R. Principles and Practices of Infectious Diseases. 4th ed. New York, NY: Churchill Livingstone; 1995:26322656.Google Scholar
3. Abbott Laboratories. Norvir (ritonavir) package insert. North Chicago, IL. February 1996.Google Scholar