have you ever contracted a disease you work with?

Question: have you ever contracted a disease you work with?
- Keywords:
  disease,
  risk,
  work
Asked by anon-342483 on 21 Nov 2022.
- Ailish Tynan answered on 21 Nov 2022:
  
  There are lots and lots of health and safety measures in labs that prevent this from happening these days! Personally I don’t work with anything that would be considered infectious but there are still many dangerous chemicals we work with everyday so that’s why it’s important to wear protective clothing like a lab coat, gloves and safety googles.
- Matthew Swift answered on 21 Nov 2022:
  
  Most of the diseases and conditions I work with are genetic or inherited which means you can’t contract them in a lab setting. But there are people who I work with who investigate a number of viruses and they take all the relevant precautions to ensure this doesn’t happen!
- Sharon Madzorera answered on 22 Nov 2022:
  
  I worked with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID). I contracted COVID during that time, but not from work.
- Charlene Kay answered on 22 Nov 2022:
  
  Good question – thankfully for me that’s a no! There are so many health checks done depending on what you work on. Because I work with human breast cancer tissues I had to have certain vaccines checked before I started work and ended up needing a top up of my hep B vaccine.
- Daniel Biggs answered on 25 Nov 2022:
  
  Interesting question – and one I can say no to. Only ever caught a cold at work, but even then with school age children I can be sure its from work.
  
  I regularly take part in medical trials as its close to work and can pay a little money to help with things. I took part in a thyphoid study and got a bit ill from that.
- Mukta Deobagkar answered on 25 Nov 2022:
  
  I worked with Salmonella (the type that can cause typhoid as well as they type that can cause diarrhoea) for many years and thankfully for me, I never contracted the disease! Also, although many people around me were working with SARS-COV2, I never caught the virus at work.
  
  This is possibly because we use many many health and safety measures at work. Scientists are trained to be measured and careful when working with harmful, infectious and toxic material. And we are all expected to wear protective gear at work (gloves, safety goggles, labcoats, etc) to keep ourselves and our colleagues safe!
- Charli Corcoran answered on 28 Nov 2022:
  
  I don’t work directly with any diseases that can be caught, so catching the things that are being studied is not really high on our risk assessments. However, there are several diseases that the fish can have, or that can be present in the water, that can be transmitted to humans, and these are a real risk for anyone working with the animals. For that reason we have strict rules in place, such as gloves must be work when handling the tanks, the proper equipment must be used, hands must be washed etc.
  
  But I have never caught any of the diseases that the fish have that can be passed on to humans.

Question: have you ever contracted a disease you work with?

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