Abstract
In the scientific community laboratory workers have recently been concerned about their increased risk for infection by viruses. In view of the AIDS epidemic, one family of viruses that has required vigilant surveillance has been the retroviruses. Their stealthy infectious course of genomic integration followed by a long latent period culminating in disease is especially dangerous to public health. As new areas of health care become a standard practice of medicine (xenotransplantation, gene therapy, genetically engineered vaccines, etc.), greater attention must be given to identifying transmission of newly emerging retroviruses from these procedures.
In 1995, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began systematic, prospective surveillance to identify and characterize potential transmission sources of such agents in occupational settings where humans may come in contact with nonhuman primates. Much of this activity resulted from an awareness that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) came from nonhuman primates and that greater effort to develop an HIV vaccine would potentially place more animal workers at risk from viruses transmissible from nonhuman primates to humans. This article addresses emerging retroviruses in general and the occupational safety issues for laboratory workers who come in contact with nonhuman primates and their tissues.