Updated Resources: Protecting First Responders from Infection

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and other Centers for Disease Control (CDC) partners have updated resources to help prevent exposure of emergency response employees to potentially life-threatening infectious diseases. Included are:

• a list of potentially life-threatening infectious diseases
• guidelines describing the circumstances that could lead to exposure
• guidelines for medical facilities to determine whether exposures have occurred

The update, directed by Congress, complies with the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act, enacted in 1990. The revised list of potentially life-threatening infectious diseases includes all those on the original 1990 list:

• diphtheria
• hepatitis B
• HIV
• tuberculosis
• viral hemorrhagic fevers
• meningococcal disease
• pneumonic plague
• rabies

Added are:

• anthrax
• novel influenza A
• hepatitis C
• measles
• mumps
• pertussis
• rubella
• severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
• smallpox; vaccinia
• varicella disease
• select agents

For more information: www.cdc.gov/niosh/updates/upd-11-02-11.html