Page updated 30 April 2007
Detection of Transmission During Surgery
Patients may acquire virus infection from operators if the operator has an injury during the operation. A history of surgery will be specifically sought from new cases of infection. Any suspicious incident will be investigated by the Infection Control Team together with Occupational Health. It will be necessary to test the serum of any surgeon involved in such a case. To pre-empt problems of identifying when an infection was acquired, serum should be saved for a minimum of six months, but preferably longer, from all individuals undergoing major (thoracic or abdominal) surgery.
If a needlestick accident occurs during surgery then blood is transferred from surgeon to patient and from patient to surgeon. For this reason, surgeon and patient are both donors and recipients and the surgeon's and patient's blood will be tested for blood-borne agents. Accidents in surgery must be reported.
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