Written materials expanding on the telephone discussion will be sent when needed. The Needlestick Hotline was developed in 1988 to provide immediate treatment to exposed health care workers at SFGH and has served as a model for similar programs elsewhere. Health care workers are justifiably concerned about this issue and they need the most current information. Co-director of the PEPLine , Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH, who also developed the Needlestick Hotline, concurred. Recent studies suggest that prompt treatment can be critically important for many health care workers sustaining occupational exposures.
Antiretroviral therapy is potentially a life-saver.
However, therapy should be started as soon as possible after an exposure. The development of new antiretroviral drugs has given hope to HIV-infected persons and to exposed health care workers. However, these advances also mean that determining the most effective prophylaxis regimens can be difficult. Those responsible for providing help to exposed health care workers are not uniformly knowledgeable about assessing risk and selecting the most appropriate interventions.