LAS VEGAS — Nearly 40,000 people learned this week that a trip to the doctor may have made them sick.
A Las Vegas clinic was found to be reusing syringes and vials of medication for nearly four years. The shoddy practices may have led to an outbreak of the potentially fatal hepatitis C virus and exposed patients to HIV, too.
The discovery has led to the biggest public health notification operation in U.S. history, brought demands for investigations and caused scores of lawyers to seek out patients at risk for infections.
Thousands of patients are being urged to be tested for the viruses. Six acute cases of hepatitis C have been confirmed. The surgical center and five affiliated clinics have been closed.
“I find it baffling, frankly, that in this day and age anyone would think it was safe to reuse a syringe,” said Michael Bell, associate director for infection control at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In letters that began arriving this week, patients who received injected anesthesia at the endoscopy center from March 2004 to mid-January were urged to get tested for hepatitis B and C, and HIV.
Health officials say they are most worried about the spread of hepatitis C, which targets the liver but shows no symptoms in as many as 80 percent of infections.
Because all three viruses are transmitted by blood, they could have been passed from one patient to the next by the unsafe practices at the clinic.
The mass notification is the result of a health district investigation that began in January when officials linked an uptick of unusual hepatitis C cases to the clinic.
Of the six patients so far diagnosed with acute hepatitis C, five received treatment at the clinic on the same day in late September.
Clinic staff told inspectors they had been ordered by management to reuse the vials and syringes. Investigators were told the practice was an attempt to cut costs, according to a letter of complaint from the city, which revoked the facility’s business license Friday.
