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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...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2020
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7084340 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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