- Hello Jeff - Noscomial HBV/HCV/HCVlike-Delta infections
are running extremely high. Why are so many hospital personnel infected
with various hep viruses? Did they all jab themselves with an infected
patient needle...? Or, is it that hospital infectious control is inadequate
when it comes to hepatitis viruses?
-
- It is a crying shame that we are pushing Hep B vaccines
on our young people. What are we doing? Why are we allowing this to happen?
-
- Patricia
-
-
- Surgeon Is Source Of Hep B Infections In Scottish
Hospital
-
- By Kirsty Scott The Guardian 8-24-1 [edited]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4244638,00.html
-
- Health officials are trying to trace 350 hospital patients
following the death of a 79 year old man who caught hepatitis B from a
surgeon at Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline, Fife. A hospital surgeon
was identified as the source of the infection. A second patient also contracted
the disease from the doctor and is recovering. Yesterday, there were calls
for hospital infection control strategies to be urgently reviewed after
it emerged that the surgeon, with 27 years experience, had been immunised
against hepatitis B and had undergone tests that indicated that the immunisation
had worked.
-
- Charles Saunders, acting director of public health for
Fife Health Board, said they did not know exactly how the tragedy occurred
but a link between the surgeon and the 2 cases of infection had been established
by DNA tests. "Preliminary results from the DNA testing suggest all
3 [isolates] of the virus are extremely similar -- suggesting, given that
the surgeon was involved in both the patients' operations within the right
sort of time period for the incubation of the virus -- that both patients
caught the hepatitis B virus from the [surgeon]," said Dr Saunders.
He said: "It is a mystery how [the surgeon] could have produced those
antibodies in response to immunisation, so the immunisation would appear
to have worked, but still remain infectious for hepatitis B virus."
-
- Hepatitis B is a liver disease spread by body fluids
in the same way as conditions like HIV; it can be passed on by contact
with infected blood or through sex. Symptoms include extreme tiredness,
joint pain, loss of appetite, nausea, and jaundice. Most of those infected
survive, but in severe cases the virus may cause cirrhosis or cancer. The
79 year old patient contracted the virus last autumn after a gall bladder
operation and died in Feb 2001.
-
- Dr Saunders defended the time span of 5 months that elapsed
between the patient's death and yesterday's disclosures. "When we
discovered the first patient had been infected with hepatitis B [virus]
we set up a very large investigation trying to see if we could identify
the source," he said. The Scottish shadow health minister, Nicola
Sturgeon, said steps must be taken to prevent a similar tragedy happening.
"Given that the surgeon involved followed all the correct safety procedures,
there must now be a review of these procedures to ensure that patient safety
is absolutely paramount," she said. ___
-
- ProMED-mail <promed@promedmail.org
-
- [This incident is unusual in that the surgeon had followed
all the currently recommended safety procedures and was permitted to operate,
yet remained infectious. - Mod.CP
-
- A larger incident of the same thing occurred in another
European country, where a surgeon who had been repeatedly vaccinated against
hepatitis B but never showed conversion turned out to be a carrier. A retrospective
survey showed that at least 28 patients (out of nearly 2000) operated on
by this surgeon over several years contracted hepatitis B -- 11 shown to
be the same strain as the surgeon's -- and the spouse of one of those became
a fatal secondary case. - Mod.JW] ....jw/cp/pg/sh ___
-
- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD Please visit my "Emerging
Diseases" message board at: http://disc.server.com/Indices/93896.html
|
