 |
 |
Carol, I worked for years as an infection control nurse and kept tract of all needle sticks and actions taken by the hospitals and the results. We did not have one sero conversion of AIDS. As you no doubt know it takes a large needle filled with blood to do any damage (from AIDS) I know of only one case in Texas and that was an MD who stuck herself under these circumstances with a BIG needle. I don't know if this is a comfort or not- however for years we sent blood to the CDC, then when we could, tested employees ourselves. It scared me for the other people though, probably not as badly as you are scared , but scared. What kind of hepatitis was it? For me to know of only one conversion under very bad circumstances means that very few occurred. I know this is not much comfort , but I hope it is some. Nita Andres, RN, MPH (that does not mean miles per hour, that would be fitting, but it means I learned an awful lot of epidemiology and statistics)