Needle-Stick Injury and Medical Students'' Knowledge

Health-care worker's contamination was noticed with discovery of blood-borne pathogens in the late 1980's. the main way of this transmission is via hollow intravascular needles, although other sharp instruments are also important [1]. sixty blood-borne pathogens have been reported until now which contain 26 kinds of viruses, 18 kinds of bacteria/ rickettsias, 13 kinds of parasites and 3 different fungi. however, hepatitis b, c and hiv viruses responsible for the majority of occupational transmission [2]. the risk of this transmission in hepatitis b (30%), hepatitis c (1.8%) and hiv (0.3%) depend on patient's viral load and the amount of blood that has been transmitted from patient to health-care worker [3].