**1. Introduction**

Occupational health problems in veterinary medicine are very frequent, and veterinarians are considered to be members of a high-risk group for occupational hazards [1].

© 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

A needlestick injury (NSI) can be defined as an inadvertent (accidental) penetrating wound from a needle that may result in exposure to the blood or other body fluids. A sharps injury includes needles or other sharp objects, such as scalpels, lancets, razor blade, scissors, nose tongs for cattle, halters, calf pulling equipment and metal cattle chutes [2, 3]. These types of injuries are considered a major occupational health problem and of serious concern for veterinarians and other healthcare workers [4]. NSI injuries usually occur during activities such as taking blood and body fluid specimens and processing, needle disposal, waste collection and transferring blood from a syringe into another vessel [5].

Awareness of the transmissibility of bloodborne infectious agents in human medicine, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus, has led to the identification of percutaneous sharps injury resulting in exposure to bloodborne pathogens as an important occupational health risk for people employed in the healthcare industry [6]. It is estimated that more than 2 million healthcare workers experience an NSI or sharps injury with a contaminated sharp instrument every year [7]. Injuries associated with NSI are associated with the potential exposure to infectious agents and syringe contents [8]. Injuries due to contact with contaminated needles may also have serious physical and psychological consequences [9].

There has been less concern regarding NSI and sharps injuries in veterinary practice, and only a few epidemiological studies have been conducted in this area. On the other hand, methodological aspects are not comparable with different design approaches [8]. The analysis of NSI is essential to identifying areas of improvement.

In order to understand the epidemiology of NSI in veterinarians over the last four decades, in this chapter we review the literature, focusing on the epidemiology of NSI and sharps injuries in veterinary practice.
