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A nurse in the state of Washington would likely have infected at least a dozen patients with hepatitis C after using injectable drugs for patients, according to a new report.
Health officials began investigating the outbreak early last year, when two patients contracted hepatitis C between January and March 2018 after being treated in the same room. Emergency near Tacoma, in the state of Washington. According to the report published this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, none of the patients presented with typical risk factors for hepatitis C, but both had received opioids during their stay in the emergency department and had been treated with the same nurse. CDC).
Both patients also had genetically identical hepatitis C strains, which meant that they were infected from the same source. (Hepatitis C is a liver infection caused by the hepatitis C virus, according to the CDC Symptoms may include fever, fatigue, abdominal pain, nausea and jaundice – yellowing of the skin and / or eyes.) [27 Devastating Infectious Diseases]
Curiously, officials discovered that the nurse had access to an automated drug delivery system at a much higher rate than other nurses. She was also tested positive for hepatitis C and admitted to having "misappropriated" a patient's medication for her personal use, the report said.
The nurse did not say exactly how she had diverted the drugs. In previous cases of people with infections in health care workers, the workers first injected the drugs and then filled the syringe with water before injecting it to the patients, indicated The report. In this case, the nurse may also have used part of the dose and give the rest to the patient using the same syringe.
After discovering the outbreak, officials contacted nearly 3,000 people who had been injected at the hospital emergency room during the time the nurse was working in the hospital. Establishment (whether or not they were treated by the nurse.)
Of these, 13 people treated by the nurse were tested positive for hepatitis C; all had strains of the virus that genetically matched the strain of the nurse virus.
Of these patients, 12 had recently contracted hepatitis C; the other patient had a known chronic infection. The nurse in question may have contracted the virus in the patient with chronic infection (treated at the hospital in November 2017), then infected the remaining 12 patients, the report said.
"Misuse of medicines by healthcare providers can pose a serious risk to patients," the report says. "Health facilities must develop safety measures and actively monitor drug delivery systems to detect and prevent the diversion of narcotics and other drugs."
After identification of the outbreak, the nurse's exercise license was suspended.
The affected hospital was not listed in the report, but last year, the MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, Washington State, issued a statement in which it acknowledged the report. investigated the outbreak and apologized to infected patients.
Originally published on Science live.
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