Handbook of Occupational Safety and Health, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 6EVALUATION AND MANAGEMENT OF EXPOSURE TO INFECTIOUS AGENTS

JANET M. MACHER

Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control, Environmental Health Laboratory Branch, California Department of Public Health (retired), 850 Marina Bay Parkway, Richmond, CA, 94804

DEBORAH GOLD

California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (retired), P.O. Box 501, Pacifica, CA, 94044

PATRICIA CRUZ

Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Community Health Sciences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV, 89154

JENNIFER L. KYLE

Division of Communicable Disease Control, Microbial Diseases Laboratory Program, California Department of Public Health, 850 Marina Bay Parkway, Richmond, CA, 94804

TIMUR S. DURRANI

School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 2789 25th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110

and

DENNIS SHUSTERMAN

Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (Emeritus), School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, Campus Box 0843, San Francisco, CA, 94143

6.1 INTRODUCTION

The evaluation and management of workplace exposures to infectious agents have received increasing attention in recent years. This interest is due in part to (i) the emergence of new organisms, such as the novel coronaviruses that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS); (ii) changes in climate, animal/human habitats, and travel that expose people to pathogens typically ...