While five of them were treated the same day in late September; the sixth is believed to have been infected in July. An investigation supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that unsafe injection practices related to the administration of anesthesia medication might have exposed patients to the blood of other patients.
The health district is recommending 40,000 patients who had procedures requiring injected anesthesia at the clinic between March 2004 and January 11, 2008, contact their primary care physicians or health care providers to get tested for hepatitis C as well as hepatitis B and HIV.
These patients will be told of the potential exposure in letters arriving next week. Hepatitis C is a blood-borne infectious disease that is caused by Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infecting the liver. The infection can cause liver inflammation (hepatitis) that is often asymptomatic, but ensuing chronic hepatitis can result later in cirrhosis (fibrotic scarring of the liver) and liver cancer.
The hepatitis C virus is spread by blood-to-blood contact with an infected person's blood. No vaccine against hepatitis C is available. The symptoms of infection can be medically managed, and a proportion of patients can be cleared of the virus by a long course of anti-viral medicines. Although early medical intervention is helpful, people with HCV infection often experience mild symptoms, and consequently do not seek treatment.
An estimated 150-200 million people worldwide are infected with hepatitis C. The health district says the virus may have spread when clinic staff reused syringes and used a single dose of anesthesia medication on multiple patients.
