Hospital laundry workers - an at-risk group for hepatitis A?

Abstract

Twenty-two laundry personnel at St. Luke's Hospital, Malta, were tested for seropositivity to hepatitis A together with 37 nursing aides working in paediatric and infectious disease wards, matched for age, who were used as controls. lgG antibodies were found in 54.5% of laundry workers and 13.5% of nursing aides [odds ratio (OR) = 7.68; 95% confidence interval (Cl) = 1.87–33.83]. Furthermore, laundry personnel consistently handling dirty linen prior to washing showed an OR of 16.50 (Cl = 1.19–825.57) as compared with colleagues handling only clean items. These results would suggest that the increased exposure of hospital laundry workers to potentially infected linen can constitute a risk of occupational hepatitis A for this group of employees.