Health-care workers‘ occupational exposures to body fluids in 21 countries in Africa: systematic review and meta-analysis

The true incidence of blood and body fluid exposure in of the eyes, nose or mouth) and non-intact skin exposure. [...] Moreover, the authors related percutaneous injuries occur annually.4 Moreover, about obtained the data in hospitals and may not be representative 40% of HBV and HCV infections and 2.5% of HIV infections of the diverse range of health-care settings in the continent. [...] Interstudy heterogeneity was as- posure to blood and body fluids among The quality of each study was as- sessed by Cochran’s Q, which gives values health-care workers in Africa, because sessed and the risk of bias was judged for X2 and P, and the percentage of the a continent-wide estimate would help using eight parameters, modelled largely total variation across studies due to het- increase aware [...] The research and non-intact skin exposure; (x) preva- protocol was registered in the PROSPE- lence of blood and body fluid exposure RO international prospective register of by health staff category; and (xi) the Results systematic reviews (CRD42017054288). [...] Nor was there with a high risk of bias, the estimated prevalence for studies published be- a significant difference in risk between pooled lifetime prevalence of all types tween 2010 and 2017 was 47.3% (95% males and females (RR: 0.886; 95% CI: of exposure to blood and body fluids CI: 41.5–53.1) for all types of exposure 0.692–1.133).