AIDS PATIENT ATTACKS NURSE WITH SYRINGE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 28, 1993                   TAG: 9302280148
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Short
AIDS PATIENT ATTACKS NURSE WITH SYRINGE
A nurse at the University of Chicago Hospitals is taking the anti-viral drug AZT in hopes of heading off possible infection with HIV after a mentally disturbed AIDS patient attacked her with a syringe containing his blood.
It was the first such attack on a health-care worker in Illinois and possibly in the country, say nursing and AIDS experts. University officials said Friday that tests showed the blood had the human immunodeficiency virus. It is not known how the patient obtained the syringe.
The nurse has said she will press criminal charges against the patient, and police were at the hospital Friday drawing up the charges, said Susan Phillips, vice president for public affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
The nurse was working her regular overnight shift on the fifth floor of Bernard Mitchell Hospital when the attack occurred, according to statements from the university medical center and from Gay Hayward, associate administrator of the Illinois Nurses Association.
According to Hayward, the patient approached the nurses station about 3 a.m. Tuesday.
"He brandished a syringe of blood and tried to stab her. She ran down the hall and he ran after her, stabbing at her," Hayward said. "Contact was made several times, but in her panic, she didn't feel any pain and didn't think she had been injured."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB