Preventive measures for injury in hospitals in Jahrom

Health care workers are always at risk of needle injuries in hospitals. This might be a way for transmission of hepatitis B and C and HIV to these individuals. So, prevention [both before and after the accident] is very important. The aim of this study is to evaluate these activities in hospitals in Jahrom, Iran. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study in which the files of 54 health care workers with needle injuries in 2006 are evaluated Data were analyzed by spss version 11.5. 66.7% of the files were related to females. In 85.2% of them preventional procedures were performed in less than 24 hours time and the mean time for starting these actions was 5 hours and 7 minutes. In 50% of the cases, the source of the needle's was clear, and only 44.4% of the cases were completely followed. According to the results of this study, infection control centers based in hospitals have taken necessary and timely measures, still, there is a need for further education of healthworkers, aiming at increasing the personnel's knowledge on this issue. Moreover, the hospital authorities support can contribute to improvement in the functioning of the hospital's infection control committees

relationship between frequency and duration of imprisonment and the prevalence of HBsAg, Anti HCV and HIV antibody seropositivity in Iranian prisoners

Imprisonment is an important issue in the area of contagious disease transmission. On the other hand, different risk factors are responsible for the transmission of hepatitis and HIV in prisoners, of which intravenous drug abuse is notable. Whether the frequency and the duration of imprisonment can affect the chance of transmission of these diseases is a question. This study tried to explore this issue in some prisons in central regions of Iran. This was an analytical, cross-sectional, descriptive study performed in 4 prisons during 1382. The prisoners were grouped according to the periodicity and duration of their imprisonment. Then, blood samples were obtained from selected prisoners and tested for HBsAg, Anti HCV, and HIV antibody. Data was then analyzed. 1431 male prisoners were studied. 51 [3.6%] subjects were HBsAg positive, 541 [37.8%] were Anti HCV positive, and 95 [6.6%] were positive for HIV antibody. The prevalence of positivity for HBsAg, AntiHCV and AntiHIV was higher in prisoners with more periodicity and/or longer duration of imprisonment. Regarding the prevalence of infection with these viruses, our results are similar to the results of previous studies in foreign countries. However, former studies had not evaluated the relationship between periodicity and duration of imprisoning and the risk of these infections. We recommend harder effort for preventing the transmission of these diseases in prisons, and consideration of strategies for decreasing the periodicity and duration of imprisonment