الفهرس 
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Abstract
SUMMARY
Despite being recognized for many years, needle stick and sharp injuries (NSSIs) continue to present a risk of occupational exposure of HCWs to blood-borne pathogens. This study was conducted to investigate the epidemiological characteristics of NSSIs among HCWs, immunization status for hepatitis B virus (HBV) and prevalence of serological markers of HBV and HCV in Alexandria Main University hospitals.
It was a retrospective survey of all self-reported documents related to NSSIs, during the period of 7 years from 2005 to 20011.
This study included 90 HCWs who reported NSSIs, nurses represented 63.3% auxiliary staff 33.3%, while physicians represented only 3.3% of study population.
This study revealed that:
1. Increase in the reported cases of NSSIs from 7 injuries in 2005 to 25 during the year 2011.
2. More injuries occurred in medical wards (53.3%) than in more intense areas such as the emergency rooms.
3. Source patient was identified in only 62.2% of cases, while in 37.8% the source patient was unidentifiable.
4. In 34(37.8%) of injuries HCW was not the original user of the sharp instrument.
5. More injuries (52.2%) occurred after use of the sharp item than during the procedure (47.8%).
6. HBV vaccination coverage was 32.2%.
7. Auxiliary staff group had the lowest vaccination coverage, only (16.7%) were vaccinated.
8. Prevalence of anti-HBc antibodies, HBsAg and anti-HCV antibodies were 17.8%, 2.2% and 12.2% respectively.
9. Overall prevalence of viremic hepatitis C and B as confirmed by PCR were