Even though it is common knowledge that you can contract a blood borne pathogens from an infected patient’s needle, there is still a surprisingly high acceptance for occupational exposure to blood from device splatter, leakage and spills. Underreporting of blood and body fluid exposures is common because of a belief that most exposures are not significant. More education of health care workers is needed to change this perspective. 

A 2009 report from the International Healthcare Worker Safety Center at the University of Virginia shows that nurses are at greatest risk, experiencing nearly 50% of reported occupational exposure to blood or bodily fluid. According to this report, the average blood and body fluid (BBF) exposure rate was 7.4 per 100 occupied beds. IV tubing/bag/pump leaked/broke was reported as the cause of the exposure in 8.2 % of the cases. 

Health care workers are at high risk of exposure to drugs during professional procedures handle in different clinical settings (from pharmacies to nursing homes and to hospitals). Exposure may occur through accidental inhalation, ingestion, absorption and dermal contact of a fraction of these drugs, and can lead to a variety of health problems (from sensitization through heritable changes, miscarriages and birth defects, to cancer). Till today, mainly cytostatic drugs have been in focus as hazardous for the health care worker. However, recent publications show, occupational hazard exists also from other pharmaceutical groups.
The updated NIOSH list of hazardous drugs that was issued in 2014 divides the listed drugs into three groups: Group 1- Antineoplastic drugs; Group 2 – Non-antineoplastic drugs that meet one or more of the NIOSH criteria for a hazardous drug; Group 3 – Drugs that primarily pose a reproductive risk to men and women who are actively trying to conceive and women who are pregnant or breast feeding, because some of these drugs may be present in breast milk. The 2014 NIOSH list also includes personal protective equipment and engineering controls for working with hazardous drugs in healthcare settings according to formulation.