Microbiologic considerations. Disinfection and sterilization strategies and the potential for airborne transmission of bloodborne pathogens.

Bloodborne pathogens are transmitted from person to person by sexual contact and by injection of drugs and, in health-care settings, by needlesticks and, in the case of HBV, by mucous membrane exposure. Conventional disinfection and sterilization and housekeeping strategies are sufficient for the environmental control of bloodborne viruses. Environmentally mediated infection transmission of bloodborne viruses is unlikely and only HBV, because of the extraordinarily high viral concentration in blood, is thought to have a real potential for such transmission. No epidemiologic or laboratory data support the hypothesis that surgeons or other health care workers are at increased risk of infection by bloodborne pathogens. Although theoretically possible, airborne transmission does not appear likely. Studies that claim to show the potential for airborne transmission of bloodborne pathogens ignore the basic principles of aerobiology and the requirements for proving environmental transmission.