Blood and body fluid exposures in health-care settings: risk reduction practices and postexposure prophylaxis for health-care workers.

This review of last year's literature on blood-borne pathogens (= pathogenic microorganisms that are found in human blood) focuses on hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the most common pathogens, despite the fact that other microorganisms may cause blood-borne diseases as well. Since the prevention of blood-borne diseases is something that, in the past, has gotten a lot of attention and by now is fully integrated in all safety structures in the U.S., the recent literatures mainly have been come from resource-limited/developing countries and Europe (which, in the definition of the financial word at the present time, in some parts overlap).