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Special Groups
Healthcare workers
On the basis of documented nosocomial transmission, HCWs are considered to be at significant risk for acquiring and transmitting the following vaccine preventable infections.
The following vaccinations (table 21.4) are strongly recommended for all HCWs:
Table 21.4 Immunisation for Healthcare Workers
* The category of healthcare workers (HCWs) include persons who provide healthcare to patients or work in institutions that provide patient care e.g. doctors, nurses, emergency medical personnel, dental professionals and students, medical and nursing students, laboratory technicians, hospital volunteers and support staff providing patient care in healthcare institutions.
The following vaccines are not routinely recommended for HCWs (exceptions listed in parenthesis)
- BCG
(Only considered for HCWs in areas where multidrug resistant tuberculosis is prevalent, where there is strong likelihood of infection & when comprehensive infection control measures have failed to prevent transmission to HCWs.) - Hepatitis A
(Consider for HCW who work in remote Indigenous communities or with Indigenous children) - Typhoid
(Considered in workers in microbiology laboratories who frequently work with Salmonella Typhi.) - Meningococcal polysaccharide vaccine
(Indicated for laboratory personnel working frequently with Neisseria meningitidis) - Vaccinia
(Indicated only for laboratory workers involved with orthopox viruses and certain health-care workers involved in clinical trials of vaccinia recombinant vaccines) - Anthrax
(Indicated for laboratory personnel working with Bacillus anthracis) - Rabies
(Pre-exposure vaccination only indicated for laboratory workers directly involved with testing or isolating rabies virus)