The influenza pandemic (H1N1) which is crossing Europe and which will reach its maximum diffusion in our country in the winter months, raises legitimate questions about the risks of infection to which scientific representatives of the drug are exposed in the exercise of their profession .
Let us immediately state that the AH1N1 virus in progress is responsible for an influenza syndrome equivalent to any other influenza viraemia which has produced low percentage mortality and morbidity compared to seasonal influenza epidemics.
On the basis of these observations, and the dissemination of news that increases collective fear regarding the risks associated with influenza A among health workers, it is deemed appropriate that this danger be reduced to some extent also in anticipation of a campaign vaccination. However, to date, this campaign remains covered in light and shadow both as regards the subjects to be vaccinated and any adverse events related to the administration of the vaccine.
However, the occasion is good for some reflections on the health surveillance to which all companies are obliged towards their employees in relation to the provisions of Legislative Decree 81/08 which defines health surveillance as follows: "set of medical acts, aimed at protection of the health and safety of workers, in relation to the working environment, occupational risk factors and the methods of carrying out the work activity".
In the case of drug sales representatives, the work environment is mainly represented by various hospital outpatient clinics and doctor's offices, places which by definition can be fully included among those at high risk for exposure to biological factors and in particular for those airborne pathogens for which involuntary exposure to uncontrolled emission sources are configured as high.
To better underline the possible sources of risk, it is enough to think of the wards of infectious diseases and diseases of the respiratory system and of the general medicine and paediatrics clinics which, for obvious reasons, constitute for the ISF places with a high probability of exposure to pathogenic microorganisms of different nature.
In the Messina population of the same ISF there would have already been cases of serious pathologies affecting the respiratory tract, perhaps contracted in a hospital environment
