Background: The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is transmitted by the same routes as that of hepatitis B (HBV) and that of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Health care workers have been considered at risk although of different intensity for acquiring the HBV and HIV with the risk of acquiring the HCV being ignored.
Methods: The presence of anti-HCV was investigated in 338 hospital workers, 110 proceeding from risk areas without direct contact with patients (laboratories and cleaning staff), 141 in direct contact and 87 with accidental risk (needle pricks or splashing of blood products) whom, at the time of the accident were anti-HCV negative. In the latter a minimum period of 6 months, which reached one year in 50% of the cases, elapsed to permit seroconversion. Three hundred seventy-seven healthy women were used as controls. The presence of anti-HCV was investigated with a second generation enzymoimmunoanalysis system confirming the results obtained with RIBA.
Results: The workers in zones of risk without direct patient contact presented global seroprevalence of anti-HCV of 1.8% with no statistical difference obtained between those who attended patients directly (1.4%) or the control group (2.1%). HCV transmission was not detected in any of the workers who experienced a high risk accident.
Conclusions: The results concerning the study of the risk of health care workers to obtain hepatitis C suggest that the risk of transmission of the hepatitis C virus in these personnel is low.