Hepatitis B Virus Infection in Dentists

Abstract

To evaluate viral hepatitis as a hazard in general dentistry, we surveyed participants in an annual health-screening program at the 1972 American Dental Association session. Of 1245 practitioners, 0.9 per cent were positive for hepatitis B surface antigen, and 12.7 per cent were antibody positive. Of those who had had clinical hepatitis while studying or practicing dentistry, 43 per cent were seropositive. The frequency of evidence for prior infection with hepatitis B virus increased uniformly with increasing years of professional experience. The proportion of seropositive dentists did not vary with geographic region of the United States, or size of community. Only 10.5 per cent recognized illicit self-injection among patients, and their infection rate was not increased. These data indicate an increased frequency of infection with hepatitis B virus among general dentists, and are compatible with relatively uniform endemicity of subtype/ad strans of that agent in the general population for several decades.

Occupational health problems of dentists in the United Arab Emirates

“…Clinical research has found that the primary occupationally related route of blood‐borne pathogen transmission in dentistry is through percutaneous injury 2 . Research has indicated that dentists have a three‐fold greater risk than the general population of contracting hepatitis B virus 3 . In a retrospective study 4 of 310 dental practitioners who took part in the investigation, 56% of respondents reported at least one inoculation injury within the previous year.…”

Knowledge, Attitude and Practice towards Infection Control Measures and it’s Correlation among Dental Students in Bhopal city, Central India

“…4 With the emergence of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, even more stringent precautions became necessary to effectively protect health care workers and the public, leading to the recommendations by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concerning the prevention of HIV transmission in health care settings and universal precaution guidelines. 4 With the emergence of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, even more stringent precautions became necessary to effectively protect health care workers and the public, leading to the recommendations by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concerning the prevention of HIV transmission in health care settings and universal precaution guidelines.…”

Norwegian dentists' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior concerning the HIV

“…Other research-mitted in the same way as HBV, and far ers have found that perception of low HIV-less infectious, is a demand of pretreatment prevalence among patients is correlated to a antibody testing. The fact have a relatively high prevalence of antibod-that the dentists who answered in agreement ies to HBV (5,6). of mechanical barriers such as gloves has 'Several studies have shown that dentists been well proven for years (13).…”