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Old 06-05-2009, 12:56 AM   #77
Bigredmed
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 3,297
Mike, it wouldn't surprise me. Transmission rates of most things are very low (I happen to know that the transmission rate of Hep C is 1.5% when the inoculation happens with a large bore needle - 18 gauge or larger - and the needlestick is deep and significant. I know this because a buddy of mine, an anesthesia resident, had a stick with a Hep C+ patient a while a back and I was trying to make him feel better. Presumably it'd be even lower with smaller needles and less significant pokes). Given that HIV garners immediate antiretroviral therapy, that transmission rate is understandably even lower and it would make sense that any actual infections would have been early on before the development and use of those drugs.
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