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Dialysis-linked hepatitis C spread alarming
About 2.2 percent of patients who underwent dialysis in 2001 were
infected
with the hepatitis C virus because some facilities apparently failed to
take
proper precautions to prevent infection, according to a government
study, which
did not identify the institutions were the infections occurred.The
research
team at the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry that conducted the study
said the
results suggest that thousands of people could be newly infected with
the
virus each year in such ways.
The Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy and the Japanese Association
of
Dialysis Physicians said they have sent emergency recommendations to
member
institutions, asking them to take sufficient steps, including not
sharing medicine
among patients.
The study was conducted at dialysis facilities nationwide. The research
team
did not name the institutions where patients were infected.
Of the roughly 52,000 people receiving dialysis therapy who had tested
negative for hepatitis C at the end of 2000, roughly 1,100 suddenly
tested positive
at the end of 2001.
As there are around 230,000 dialysis patients in Japan, the survey
suggests
several thousand are infected each year with hepatitis C at facilities.
The survey shows that at the majority of facilities, there were no newly
infected patients, and it is only at certain facilities that fail to
take proper
measures that the infection rate is high.
The researchers said calls for improved measures have been made in
particular
to facilities where patients have been newly infected in the past year
or
where more than a third of the patients have hepatitis C.
The researchers said the most important warning is to not share
medicine. The
study of group infections nationwide suggests that the main cause of
infection was the sharing among several patients of medicine such as
mass-produced
blood anticoagulants, they said.
