Chicago Tribune (CT) - TUESDAY, July 4, 1995 Edition: NORTH SPORTS FINAL Section: CHICAGOLAND Page: 3 Word Count: 598
Sharman Stein, Tribune Staff Writer.
But when Mt. Sinai Hospital sent out letters to some 300 patients last week, informing them that they had had contact with a health care worker who has tested positive for the HIV virus, it was just following state law.
In the letter, the hospital suggested that patients call the Chicago Department of Public Health to schedule a free HIV test and to receive counseling.
As of Monday, about 75 patients called the hospital, and about 50 had requested a test.
But AIDS experts and health officials emphasized that the probability of any patient becoming infected with the AIDS virus because of his or her contact with the medical employee is minimal.
A May study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found no cases of transmission in the 22,171 patients of 51 HIV-infected health care workers throughout the United States, according to Bob Rybicki, assistant commissioner for the Chicago Department of Public Health.
"What we need to worry about HIV is unsafe sex practices and sharing drug needles, which make up the vast preponderance of cases," Rybicki said.
"As long as the physician or health care worker was taking universal precautions (wearing gloves and a mask), we don't believe there is any risk of transmission," said Tom Shaefer, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Shaefer said a handful of other hospitals in Illinois in recent years also have had to inform patients after health care workers became infected with HIV. Mt. Sinai has been "very careful," Schaefer said, and included in its list of patients to contact some who underwent medical procedures that in no way would have put them at risk of becoming infected because their contact with the medical worker was so minimal.
There has been only one reported case in the United States in which a health care worker was linked to transmission of the AIDS virus to his patients. That 1989 case-involving Florida dentist David Acer-is still somewhat of a mystery because epidemiologists studying the case haven't been able to say how the dentist passed the virus to six patients.
Some critics also have contended that the patients may have become infected with HIV through other risks, such as unsafe sexual behavior.
After the Mt. Sinai employee, whom the hospital will not identify, reported his HIV-positive status to the hospital in May, the hospital combed through thousands of charts to find which patients had had contact with him.
A June 27 letter from the hospital informed the patients that they had had contact with the hospital employee, tried to provide reassurance about the "non-existent" risk, and provided a toll free number patients could call.
"We feel good about the precautions we were already taking, because we follow universal precautions as recommended by the Illinois Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control," said infectious diseases specialist Dr. Robert Levin of Mt. Sinai.
"The precautions are simple-health care workers are required to wear disposable gloves when they become involved in any activity which could possibly entail contact with a patient's blood or blood-contaminated body fluids," Levin said.
Significantly reducing the risk of infection from a doctor or other medical worker to the patient is the fact that hands have no secretions and are not the source of any bodily fluids which transmit HIV, Levin said.
The infected employee is still employed at the hospital, but is no longer working with patients, Levin said.
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