Hazards of occupational transmission and strategies for prevention of infectious disease in dental education

The emergence of AIDS has alerted the nation9s health care community to the dangers of occupational transmission of infectious disease. This article assesses the risk of occupational transmission in the health care setting and examines two prevention strategies: vaccination programs and infection control protocols. The implementation of these strategies by the School of Dentistry, University of California at San Francisco, is recounted to illustrate an institutional response to the issue of infection control in the dental setting.