There are still many questions about the infectious disease scare hovering over our valley. The Southern Nevada Health District has confirmed six cases of hepatitis C linked to the Endoscopy Center on Shadow Lane.
UMC Offering Help to Medical Center Patients
But recent blood tests have some thinking there may be more valley residents exposed to hepatitis or HIV by unsafe injection practices.
Here's how it happened: A patient with hepatitis C is injected with medication. If that patient needs a second dose, the needle is thrown away but the same syringe is inserted into the same vial of medicine, contaminating it.
The following centers are now closed:
- Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, 700 Shadow Lane
- Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center, 4275 S. Burnham
- Gastroenterology Center of Nevada, 4275 S. Burnham
- Spanish Hills Surgical Center, 5915 S. Rainbow Blvd.
- Gastroenterology Center of Nevada, 2610 W. Horizon Ridge Parkway
- Gastroenterology Center of Nevada, 1815 E. Lake Mead Blvd. #207
That vial is then used to inject other patients, potentially passing on the infection.
"Patients after that, even though they were getting a clean needle and clean syringe, were getting the contamination from that vial that had already been contaminated," said Brian Labus with SNHD.
Read the Health District letter sent to patients
Some patients claim recent blood work showed up positive for hepatitis C. The health district says that's possible, but is still too early to directly link it to the Endoscopy Center.
"About 4-percent of people in that age group who go to the clinic are expected to have hepatitis C prior to going to the clinic. It is a very common infection in that age group, so a lot of people who have already gone there would have been previously infected," said Labus.
Read about the background of the doctors
Infected but not aware -- some people don't have symptoms. The health district says as lab results come in, they will do further genetic testing to see if there's a common link among any of the cases.
"The problem with the testing for an individual person, you can't say where that person was infected -- even if it's a day where we have known transmission, we can't say with absolute certainty the infection happened on the clinic on that day. So it will be frustrating for some people," said Labus.
And it might be a while before patients gets any more answers. Hepatitis C takes up to six months to show up in blood tests, meaning patients who recently had procedures at the center will need to be re-tested for hepatitis C in a few months.
For now, the health district says they have only linked hepatitis C cases back to the Endoscopy Center on Shadow Lane, and not to the other five clinics that have been closed.
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