Posted By Lisa Frost Any advice Please. We run a large animal hosptial, dealing with high numbers of trauma and the possibility of zoonoitc infections. One of our animal nurses is now pregnant and I feel, following a risk assessment, that she should be excluded from all contact with animals as, even with high standards of hygiene, we cannot reduce the risks involved. I would be interested to know if anyone else has any experience in this area or any advice. Thanks

Posted By Chris Huckle Hi Lisa Much of the work that we are involved in involves working with farm animals or their waste products.These present a tremendously wide range of zoonoses. When a member of staff informs us that they are pregnant, we would immediatley look at their job, and identify any areas that would place them or even potentially expose them to high risk. Their work practices would them be adapted and changed to remove any exposure to the areas that exposed them to these risks. Some of these areas that would place them at high risk would be work with various mutagenic or teratogenic chemicals, working with farm animals or their waste products would all be areas that we would stop the individual working in. There are also several zoonoses that could potentially affect the fertility of women of child bearing age, if we know that there is the potential for infection from these, we would modify the tasks that these women are allowed to do. Chris