Scabies, a Contemporary Occupational Disease

Overview

The author draws attention to ever urgent problems of scabies from the occupational aspect. She gives an account of the incidence of the parasitic slon disease in 1995-2000 in the Czech Republic in relation to the number of notified infectious diseases. Throughout the investigation period occupational scabies held the first place among occupational slon infectious. In 1998 and 2000 it accounted for almost 50% of infectious and parasitic occupational diseases. The increased incidence of the disease is mostly due to epidemics in the general population, its spread is due to the low standard of hygiene, low social standard, overcrowding, increased migration with an higher risk for the elderly population, mentally retarded and immunocompromised subjects. Therefore occupational scabies is more frequent among women who are engaged in social and nursing care in social care institutions, in health institutions and in institutions for chronic patients. The source are always patients in these institutions and transmission takes place mostly as a result of intensive physical contact of the nursing staff with the infested patient. The author defines criteria of rating activities for classification as occupational disease.

Key words:
infectious occupational disease, infectious slon disease, scabies, prevention