The country became aware of  the drug diversion case against David Kwiatkowski (DK) in New Hampshire last year.  The investigation then spread to seven other states because he was a traveling technician.  About 43 cases of HCV nationwide have been attributed to DK but Exeter Hospital is the center of the HCV outbreak.  (The trial is delayed.)

Kwiatkowski, who pleaded not guilty to 14 drug charges in December, is accused of stealing painkiller syringes from Exeter Hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab and replacing them with saline-filled syringes tainted with his own blood.

The good news is that 135 people, who presumably didn’t know they had been infected with HCV (active or cleared), prior to the revelations about Kwiatkowski, now know their HCV status.   And the 79 with newly discovered active HCV cases can get help.  The State of New Hampshire has billed Exeter Hospital for $42,000 for testing clinics that were held around the state.  

NH HEPATITIS C VIRUS (HCV) OUTBREAK INVESTIGATION
TESTING SUMMARY
May 15, 2012 to February 1, 2013

Tested thus far:  3,838; still to be tested: 667

People with active HCV infection matching outbreak: 32 plus 1 employee (D.K.) =33

People with active HCV infection unrelated to outbreak: 47

People with past HCV infection (cleared infection): 56

Maryland’s report (3/13) is shows that hospital drug diversion resulting in clusters of HCV infections are not a new phenomenon (pages 17-19).  See: http://www.concordmonitor.com/news/4220717-95/story.html

The Baltimore VA, which also employed DK,  has not issued a new update since 8/12.

But in Exeter, about 3.5% of the 3,838 have been infected with HCV.  If you take DK’s  32 victims out of the picture, about 2.4% have been infected with HCV in their past. This is  higher than the 1.9% the government estimates HCV exposure to be.

My first grandchild (now 7) was born in this modern hospital and I was impressed with the facility and I see several morals to the still developing NH story.  Even excellent hospitals have problems with infection control procedures.   If the rates of HCV are this high in this small sample,even  sans the drug diversion case, the CDC is probably underestimating HCV prevalence rates in the U.S.. It would be a lot cheaper to test everyone for HCV as part routine care, rather than in crisis mode.  If HCV-infection rates are high in Exeter, an affluent and quintessential New England town, a town where gifted children go for the best private education, they are probably high (or higher) elsewhere.

HCV: a mari usque ad mare (from sea to sea)