Bloodborne Pathogens and Needlestick Prevention

Bloodborne Pathogens Menu Workers' Rights

General Guidance

What is the Bloodborne
Pathogens Standard?

OSHA's Bloodborne Pathogens (BBP) Standard (29 CFR 1910.1030) as amended pursuant to the 2000 Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act (NSPA), is a standard designed to safeguard workers against health hazards related to bloodborne pathogens. It has provisions for exposure control plans, engineering and work practice controls, hepatitis B vaccinations, hazard communication and training, and recordkeeping. The standard imposes requirements on employers of workers with reasonably anticipated exposure to blood or other potentially infectious materials such as certain tissues and body fluids.

Engineering controls are the primary means of eliminating or minimizing employee exposure. They include the use of safer medical devices, such as needleless devices, shielded needle devices, and plastic capillary tubes.

Best practices to prevent sharps and needlestick injuries include:

  • Completing Bloodborne Pathogens training.
  • Planning safe handling and disposal before any procedure.
  • Using safe and effective needleless alternatives when available.
  • Using sharps with engineered sharps injury protection (SESIPs).
  • Ensuring training on how to use SESIPs prior to their use.
  • Always activating the device's safety features.
  • Not passing used sharps between workers.
  • Not recapping, shearing, or breaking contaminated needles (Figure 1).
  • Immediately disposing of contaminated needles in properly secured, puncture-resistant, closable, leak-proof, labeled sharps containers (Figure 2).

The following OSHA resources address the revised standard. Please Note: Articles/references that are dated before April 18, 2001, may not reflect all the changes since the NSPA law, which revised the BBP Standard, but they still provide relevant, general information.