Flu in Hospital Workers

[indigo girl]

http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2010/04/flu_in_hospital_workers.php

The study took place in five hospitals during the first wave of the 2009 pandemic (spring), before any vaccine was available. Santos et al. looked at lab confirmed diagnoses and employee sick hours records for various departments:

Records of 123 confirmed reports of laboratory-confirmed influenza A or novel H1N1 infections in hospital employees were also analyzed. Two thirds of the H1N1 cases occurred during June (infection rates in parentheses): 34 in physicians and medical personnel (6.7%), 36 in nurses and clinical technicians (2.2%), 39 in Administrative & Support Personnel (infection rate = 1.2%), 3 in Social Workers & Counselors (infection rate = 1.0%), 8 in Housekeeping & Food Services (infection rate = 2.7%), and 3 in Security & Transportation (infection rate=3.9%). When analyzed according to department, the adult emergency department (infection rate = 28.8%) and the pediatric emergency department (infection rate = 25.0%) had the highest infection rates per department. (Santos et al.,Which Health Care Workers Were Most Affected During the Spring 2009 H1N1 Pandemic?, Disaster Medicine And Public Health Preparedness, 2010 4: 47-54; abstract)

No surprises but nothing comforting if you work in the ER, either. Half of the cases were in departments that had only 20% of the employees. Their risk was more than double that of other hospital workers, clearly a direct matter of exposure and not from just being another member of a general population experiencing a flu pandemic. Whatever precautions they were taking to protect themselves, they weren't working very well. Maybe interesting and useful information like that is actually in the article.

The Editors of Effect Measure are senior public health scientists and practitioners. Paul Revere was a member of the first local Board of Health in the United States (Boston, 1799). The Editors sign their posts "Revere" to recognize the public service of a professional forerunner better known for other things.

[indigo girl]

Brazil

FluTrackers - View Single Post - A nurse suspected of having H1N1 is buried

It is the end of fall in Brazil, & the start of winter. This is a translation about the death of a 30 yr old nurse. She was treated with Tamiflu, but probably too late.

A nurse is hospitalized with suspected H1N1

Admitted to the ICU of Hospital Jaar Andrade in Cajazeiras VII, a woman suspected of having H1N1. Martha Gibson, a nurse for 30 years, was admitted to hospital last Sunday, feeling short of breath, high fever and chest pain.

According to information from the Secretariat of Health of Bahia (SESAB), Gomes took no vaccine against the disease. She works at the Health Post Marechal Rondon. At the hospital, she was treated with Tamiflu. The tests will determine if she really has the flu H1N1 has already been made, but the results have not yet left.