Three patients exposed to contaminated endoscopy equipment at hospitals run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have tested positive for HIV in initial tests, the agency reported on Friday.
More than 10,000 patients are being tested following colonoscopy exams using equipment that wasn't properly sterilized, exposing the patients to other people's body fluids.
Following the discovery of inadequate sterilization procedures last December at a VA clinic in Murfreesboro, TN, all VA facilities were required to review their processes to ensure compliance with equipment manufacturer's instructions. "Significant" reprocessing issues were found at three VA centers, which began notifying and testing patients who were potentially exposed to serious disease. The faulty procedures were in place for as long as five years.
The following tables detail the testing efforts and preliminary results as of April 17:
Numbers of potentially affected patients
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1VA continues notification procedures. 2Unable to determine exact number of patients tested, as some may have gone to another center or outside the VA system. 3Some results are preliminary and some are final. Source: U.S. Veteran's Administration |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sites with unverified positive tests
|
||||||||||||||||||||
| Source: U.S. Veteran's Administration | ||||||||||||||||||||
The agency emphasizes that it has no way of knowing if any of the detected exposures to HIV, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B resulted from the faulty sterilization procedures.
Patients who believe they may have been exposed are urged to contact the VA's special care call center at 877-575-7256 (available 24 hours a day, seven days a week) or via e-mail at [email protected].
Related Reading
HIV case probed in tainted colonoscope investigation, April 7, 2009
Dirty colonoscopes spark inquiry at VA hospitals, March 26, 2009
Copyright © 2009 AuntMinnie.com
