Chapter 6 - Biohazards

Abstract

This chapter summarizes that over the last three decades it became increasingly evident that in addition to those hazards and risks typically faced by emergency response personnel, much attention is to be given to the hazards and risks posed by the continually expanding profusion of industrial and commercial chemicals. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) implemented its own “Bloodborne Pathogen Standard.” The recognition of blood borne pathogens as an occupational risk to any personnel having contact with blood and body fluids of infected persons is firmly established, blood borne pathogens do not exhaust the range of biohazards that may present health risks to emergency responders. With the rapidly growing mobility and population density of persons in an increasingly cosmopolitan global village, the ever developing industrial and commercial use of biotechnology and, the misuse of previous pharmaceutical technology, the general public continues to be at high risk due to a host of pathogenic and parasitic organisms, with yearly deaths exceeding and accounting for one-third of deaths worldwide.