HHS launches national HIV postexposure hotline
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched a toll-free hotline to help clinicians counsel and treat health care workers with possible occupational exposures to HIV via needlesticks.
Infection control professionals and others assisting health care workers following needlesticks and other blood exposures can call the National Clinicians’ Post-Exposure Prophylaxis Hotline (PEPline) at 1-888-448-4911 from anywhere in the U.S. 24 hours a day. The PEPline has trained physicians prepared to give clinicians information, counseling and treatment recommendations for workers who have needlestick injuries. Antiretroviral therapy is a potential life-saver and should be started as soon as possible after an exposure, according to the PEPline clinicians.
The National Clinicians’ PEPline is a joint project of the Health Resources and Services Admini stra tion (HRSA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in collaboration with the San Francisco Department of Public Health and the University of California, San Francisco. The new hotline combines and expands two existing programs at San Francisco General Hospital: the National HIV Telephone Consultation Service, or Warmline, funded by HRSA’s AIDS Education and Training Center Program, and the UCSF/ SFGH Epidemiology and Prevention Interven tions Center Needle-Stick Hotline.
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