A hepatitis C outbreak that resulted in about 63,000 possible patient exposures, at least 9 linked cases and as much as $21 million in community expenses was "entirely preventable," investigators say, if only staff at 2 Las Vegas-area endoscopy clinics "had adhered to well-established, safe and common sense injection practices."
After 2 years of investigating the outbreak, officials from the Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have released a final, 261-page report that confirms the suspected cause of the infections: "a combination of unsafe injection practices," including "the reuse of syringes to access vials" of propofol and the reuse of those vials for subsequent patients. Investigators ruled out endoscopes and bite blocks at potential sources of infection at the clinics.
Genetic testing performed by the CDC confirmed 7 hepatitis C infections linked to the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada and 2 more linked to the Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center. Investigators identified another 106 cases that "could be possibly linked to one of the clinics," but could not be confirmed as such, because other sources of infection couldn't be ruled out.
Brian Labus, senior epidemiologist for the SNHD, says nearly 10% of households in the affected county had a member who could have been exposed because of the unsafe injection practices at the 2 clinics. All told, investigators estimate that the outbreak and its aftermath cost the community about $16 million to $21 million in investigative and medical expenses.
Irene Tsikitas
