Postexposure treatment not easy to swallow
Postexposure treatment not easy to swallow
Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that about one-third of health care workers who undergo HIV postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) do not complete their course of drugs.
"This study demonstrates that medical solutions aren't always the easy answer we're looking for," says Helene Gayle, MD, MPH, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention. "While PEP can reduce the chances of infection for exposed health care workers, these drugs can cause adverse side effects and are not 100% effective."
The study found that three-quarters of those workers who stopped did so because of side effects. The side effects explain why only 58 of the study's 114 health care workers exposed to HIV opted for PEP.
The study results underscore the need for preventing exposures. CDC research presented at the 12th World AIDS Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in July found that at least 50% of occupational exposures in a cohort of 100 workers could have been prevented using appropriate work practices, such as proper handling and disposal of sharps and not recapping needles.
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