2The Tar Heel Thursday, June 11, 1987
News
AIDS causes concern among health care workers
By PAUL RUSS
Staff Writer
After the national Center for
Disease Control (CDC) revealed
in a recent report that three
women health care workers had
contracted AIDS from their
patients, infection control practi
tioners were confronted with the
task of keeping fellow workers
from overreacting.
The three cases were the first
documented cases of AIDS infec
tions among health care workers
which didn't involve direct injec
tion of infected blood or pro
longed exposure to body fluids of
an infected patient.
"In the long run," said Loraine
Price, Clinical Instructor in Infec
tion Control Medicine at UNC,
"the CDC report will have positive
effects by causing an awareness
among health care workers to
comply with safety guidelines.
"As long as no one overreacts,'
Price said, "it will be a positive
experience in the short run too."
It must be made clear that these
three health care workers did not
contract the disease by casual
contact, Price said. Also, research
still shows that AIDS cannot be
contracted through casual
contacts.
"Each of the three women had
portals of entry for the virus,"
Price said. One of the workers had
chapped hands and was not wear
ing gloves, one was splashed in the
face and the virus entered possibly
through her mouth or eyes, and
the third worker had dermatitis on
her ear, Price said. These were not
instances of casual contact, she
said.
In a recent interview, nurse
Carolyn Crigler, the infection
control practitioner at HCA's
Orthopaedic Hospital of Char
lotte, emphasized the importance
of practicing standard health care
guidelines when handling blood
products. "Before the CDC's
report, my past seven years of
preaching was just seen as 'infec
tion control guidelines, " Crigler
said. "Now all the guidelines have
become important and real."
An important factor in all three
cases, Crigler said, was that the
nurses and lab technician were not
following standard practices for
the handling of infected blood
products.
"These guidelines were learned
way back in nursing school,"
Crigler said. "We don't need
'extraordinary' precautions to
handle AIDS patients.
"But the standard precautions
need to be followed for every single
patient. There are so many carriers
of the virus that we don't know
about."
Crigler said that since the
CDC's report she had not seen any
negative repercussions among
health care workers at her hospi
tal, only an increased awareness.
Its fear is unwarranted because
the virus simply isn't easy to
transmit, Crigler said. Fear would
have increased among health care
workers years ago if the virus were
easily transmitted, she said.
At their educational conference
in May 1987, the Association for
Practitioners in Infection Control
(APIC) noted that the risk to
health care workers exposed to the
virus is extremely small. The risk
is less in magnitude than that for
Hepatitis B.
"The APIC conference recom
mended that health care workers
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assume all patients are infected
with AIDS virus when handling
blood products or body fluids.
"Health care workers need to
understand how the virus is
spread," Crigler said. "They can't
let their emotions overshadow the
truth of how it's spread.
"It's important to educate and
talk about it. That's our best
protection."
Price said, "We need to isolate
the disease not overreact and
isolate the people."
Theft of computer
hurts campus center
By RON CRAWFORD
University Editor
The June 1 theft of a $4,000
computer system from UNC's
International Center, the latest in
a string of similar thefts, brings
the total cost of campus computer
equipment stolen since March to
$13,000.
But University police Sgt. Ned
Comar does not think the thefts
are related.
International Center Director
Jill Bulthuis said the theft of the
center's IBM pcXT, printer, soft
ware and instructional manuals
has crippled the center.
The center's database, which
contains critical information on
over 200 students from 72 foreign
countries who will be attending
UNC this fall, was also lost in the
theft. Replacing the database wll
be "costly and lengthy, Bulthuis
said.
"The problem is finding the
resources to build a new data
base," Bulthuis said. UNC does
not insure its computer equip
ment, she said, and reprogram
ming the database will take 18
months.
Bulthuis said the center is
presently using computer equip
ment loaned from the College of
Arts and Sciences and is trying to
locate funds for hiring graduate
students to type information back
into the computer.
The equipment was apparently
stolen by someone who had a key
to the center's office, Bulthuis said,
because there was no sign of forced
entry.
Sgt. Ned Comar of the Univer
sity Police said little or no force
was used in most of the computer
thefts.
"The problem we're having is
most of the theft is coming from
people who apparently have access
to the equipment," Comar said.
"We're trying to convince those
who have computers and those
who intend to get computers to
secure them better."
Comar suggested that compu
ters be bolted down with a system
that requires two keys to unlock.
"There is some beautiful (two
key) equipment on the market now
that is cost-effective," he said.
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