The epidemiology of hepatitis B in hospital personnel was studied by testing of sera from 3,770 employees of the Medical School of Hannover (Hannover, West Germany) for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and its corresponding antibody (anti-HBs) by solid-phase radioimmunoassay. An average prevalence of 2.2% for HBsAg and 11.7% for anti-HBs was found. Physicians (18.2%), nurses (20.1%), and members of the cleaning service (26.3%) showed the highest frequencies of HBsAg or anti-HBs carriage. In a study of age- and sex-matched personnel, nurses showed a significantly (P less than 0.01) higher rate of infection than a control group with less exposure to infectious materials. The frequency of HBsAg or anti-HBs was highest in persons associated with dialysis (31.3%), anesthesiology (31.0%), ophthalmology (29.4%, neurosurgery (28.0%), and surgery (24.4%). The rate of infection was significantly higher in surgical departments (24.4%) than in nonsurgical ones (13.3%). Persons who had been nursing patients with hepatitis were significantly (P less than 0.05) more frequently carriers of HBsAg or anti-HBs than a comparable control group.

A macro system for PL/1-programming is described. It facilitates the coding of application programs for teleprocessing (TP) systems and standardizes these programs. Options may be included as the programmer desires. The macro system allows usage of the same program from multiple terminals. Standardized access and handling procedures facilitate the usage of the various application programs within the information system. The design criteria of the macros allow an adaptation to other TP systems in order to avoid »locking in« of application programs into one TP system and provide means for program exchange.

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