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Tuberculosis among Health Workers—A Secondary Data Analysis of German Social Accident Insurance Data from 2002–2017

Tuberculosis (TB) is the most common cause of fatal infections worldwide. Recent TB figures in Europe indicate that 30 people were infected with tuberculosis each hour in 2017. Healthcare workers are at particular risk of being infected through patient contact. TB is the second most common occupatio...

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Autores principales: Kersten, Jan Felix, Nienhaus, Albert, Schneider, Stephanie, Schablon, Anja
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7084340/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32121256
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051564
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author Kersten, Jan Felix
Nienhaus, Albert
Schneider, Stephanie
Schablon, Anja
author_facet Kersten, Jan Felix
Nienhaus, Albert
Schneider, Stephanie
Schablon, Anja
author_sort Kersten, Jan Felix
collection PubMed
description Tuberculosis (TB) is the most common cause of fatal infections worldwide. Recent TB figures in Europe indicate that 30 people were infected with tuberculosis each hour in 2017. Healthcare workers are at particular risk of being infected through patient contact. TB is the second most common occupational infectious disease among German healthcare workers. Routine data from the German Social Accident Insurance were used to examine trends in occupational TB diseases. We analyzed annual cross-sectional data for the years 2002 to 2017. The data underwent descriptive analysis. A total of 4653 TB cases were recognized as occupational diseases (OD) in the period under study. In 2002, 60 TB cases were recognized as OD No. 3101, i.e., transmissions from person to person. Since 2013, the level has settled at around 500 recognized cases per year. This is around eight times the number of cases compared to 2002. The following three groups collectively accounted for the largest share of TB cases (88.5%): nurses (including geriatric nurses), other healthcare employees, and physicians. The upward trend in the number of TB cases recognized as occupational diseases is probably due to improvements in diagnostic tests used to diagnose TB infections. TB in health and welfare workers remains an important issue in the health and welfare sector in Germany, partly due to the long latency period between potential exposure to infectious patients or materials and the recognition of the latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) or active TB as OD.
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spelling pubmed-70843402020-03-24 Tuberculosis among Health Workers—A Secondary Data Analysis of German Social Accident Insurance Data from 2002–2017 Kersten, Jan Felix Nienhaus, Albert Schneider, Stephanie Schablon, Anja Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Tuberculosis (TB) is the most common cause of fatal infections worldwide. Recent TB figures in Europe indicate that 30 people were infected with tuberculosis each hour in 2017. Healthcare workers are at particular risk of being infected through patient contact. TB is the second most common occupational infectious disease among German healthcare workers. Routine data from the German Social Accident Insurance were used to examine trends in occupational TB diseases. We analyzed annual cross-sectional data for the years 2002 to 2017. The data underwent descriptive analysis. A total of 4653 TB cases were recognized as occupational diseases (OD) in the period under study. In 2002, 60 TB cases were recognized as OD No. 3101, i.e., transmissions from person to person. Since 2013, the level has settled at around 500 recognized cases per year. This is around eight times the number of cases compared to 2002. The following three groups collectively accounted for the largest share of TB cases (88.5%): nurses (including geriatric nurses), other healthcare employees, and physicians. The upward trend in the number of TB cases recognized as occupational diseases is probably due to improvements in diagnostic tests used to diagnose TB infections. TB in health and welfare workers remains an important issue in the health and welfare sector in Germany, partly due to the long latency period between potential exposure to infectious patients or materials and the recognition of the latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) or active TB as OD. MDPI 2020-02-28 2020-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7084340/ /pubmed/32121256 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051564 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Kersten, Jan Felix
Nienhaus, Albert
Schneider, Stephanie
Schablon, Anja
Tuberculosis among Health Workers—A Secondary Data Analysis of German Social Accident Insurance Data from 2002–2017
title Tuberculosis among Health Workers—A Secondary Data Analysis of German Social Accident Insurance Data from 2002–2017
title_full Tuberculosis among Health Workers—A Secondary Data Analysis of German Social Accident Insurance Data from 2002–2017
title_fullStr Tuberculosis among Health Workers—A Secondary Data Analysis of German Social Accident Insurance Data from 2002–2017
title_full_unstemmed Tuberculosis among Health Workers—A Secondary Data Analysis of German Social Accident Insurance Data from 2002–2017
title_short Tuberculosis among Health Workers—A Secondary Data Analysis of German Social Accident Insurance Data from 2002–2017
title_sort tuberculosis among health workers—a secondary data analysis of german social accident insurance data from 2002–2017
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7084340/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32121256
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051564
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