CDC begins work on updated IC guidance
Current guideline dates to 1998
Sixteen years have passed since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the 1998 Guideline for Infection Control in Health Care Personnel. Occupational health professionals and infection preventionists may soon get the updated, user-friendly guidance they need.
A CDC work group is reviewing guidance related to various infectious diseases that has been released since 1998, as well as new issues that have emerged, says David Kuhar, MD, medical epidemiologist with CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion.
"Many of the major principles are the same as they were in the previous guideline. Some things have clearly changed since 1998," he says. For example, the guideline will refer to new recommendations on using blood tests for tuberculosis screening.
It’s too soon to know the scope of the updated document, but as with the 1998 guideline, it will address both patient-to-provider and provider-to-patient risks of transmission, Kuhar says. The guideline also may cover non-hospital settings, he says.
The update likely will be issued in 2015 or 2016, he says.
"We recognize that this is an important update It needs to come out in a timely fashion," he says.
