U.K. dentists with HIV can operate on patients

National Health Service (NHS) staff in the U.K., including surgeons and dentists, who have HIV will be allowed to perform operations and other invasive procedures after health officials recommended lifting a 20-year ban, according to a story in the DailyMail.

The ban was imposed due to fears that HIV-positive surgeons or dentists could infect patients if they cut themselves during an operation. U.K. health officials said it was time to scrap "outdated rules," and lifting the operating ban on healthcare staff would bring the U.K. into line with most other Western countries.

Surgeons, dentists, midwives, and nurses with HIV will now be able to work normally provided they are taking antiretroviral drugs. Modern antiretroviral drugs enable people with HIV to lead normal lives, health officials said, calling the risk to patients "absolutely negligible."

Starting in April 2014, healthcare workers with HIV will be allowed to undertake all procedures if they are on effective combination of antiretroviral drug therapy. They must also have an undetectable viral load of HIV in their system, and must be regularly monitored. Public Health England will set up a confidential register with data on infected workers.

The British Dental Association said dentists in the U.K. already must comply with rigorous infection-control procedures to protect both patients and the dental team against the risk of transmission of blood-borne infections.

About 100,000 people in the U.K. are living with HIV, although experts say a quarter of those infected do not know it. In 2011, there were 6,000 new diagnoses of HIV in the U.K. An estimated 110 staff working in the NHS would be affected by the change, based on the numbers of Britons with HIV.

Changing the rules would help remove some of the stigma of the disease and encourage healthcare workers who believed they could be at risk to get tested because their careers would no longer be on the line, health officials said.

There have been four cases worldwide of health workers infecting patients since 1992, with no cases in the UK, according to the story. None of the workers was on drug treatment at the time.