1988 agent summary statement for human immunodeficiency virus and report on laboratory-acquired infection with human immunodeficiency virus
Anonymous
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 37(S-4): 22
1988
Document Number: 382751
The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have issued guidelines for use in working with infectious agents in laboratories. These guidelines were incorporated in a book "Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories" and which were updated in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in 1986 to incorporate advice on handling HIV. This supplement further updates these publications. Between 1984 and 1986 one laboratory worker who had no recognized risk behaviour for AIDS became HIV positive. In 1985 anecdotal reports indicated that several laboratory workers had been splashed with concentrated virus or cut by glass containing HIV-infected cells. None was HIV positive at 18 and 20 months respectively. In 1987 two laboratory workers were reported as being HIV positive. These were not associated with needlesticks or cuts but both were splashed with seropositive material. In 1987 two production-laboratory workers became positive, one possibly owing to leakage from equipment and contamination of a centrifuge rotor, the other following a puncture wound. In view of these findings and the known presence of HIV in a wide variety of clinical specimens the skin and mucous membranes should be considered potential pathways for entry. Sharps should be carefully handled and discarded and spilling and splashing avoided.