Blood borne virus consultation
July 25, 2014
The Pharmacy Board of Australia
(PBA), with the 13 other national
boards of the Australian Health
Practitioner Regulation Agency
(AHPRA) is consulting on a draft
guidance for health practitioners
infected with a blood-borne virus.
The AHPRA said a number of
national boards had received
feedback from employers,
practitioners, members of the
public and board members that
there was a need for this.
The guidline outlined that a
health practitioner infected with a
blood-borne virus could continue to
practise and did not need to notify
the board if complying with the
Communicable Diseases Network
Australia (CDNA) guidelines, but
that they might have to modify
their practice; for instance, they
might not be able to perform
exposure-prone procedures, the
Agency said.
The Agency said initial
stakeholder feedback had felt the
boards should inform the state
health department on learning that
a health practitioner was infected
with a blood-borne virus.
If a health practitioner posed a
risk to public health, the National
Law allowed the boards to give
written notice to an entity of the
Commonwealth, state or territory,
AHPRA said.
“A practitioner with a bloodborne
virus who had failed to
comply or is refusing to comply
with the CDNA guidelines, has or is
placing the public at risk and could
therefore be notified to the health
department on the basis that the
department may need to take
further action.”
If a board took action against a
practitioner, it would not publish
information on the register of
practitioners that stated they had a
blood-borne virus, AHPRA said.
However it might publish that
the practitioner had conditions
imposed, it said.
The Australian Society for HIV
Medicine said it was working
with government to review the
science of HIV transmission in
many areas including in the policy
of transmission from health care
workers and that there had been no
documented transmissions of HIV
infection from a health care worker
to a patient since the introduction
of highly effective antiviral therapy.
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