Thousands May Have Been Exposed to Hepatitis and HIV at South Dakota Urology Clinic, Officials Say

More than 5,000 people treated at a South Dakota urology clinic may have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis as a result of the clinic’s policy of improperly reusing single-use medical products on multiple patients, state health officials said.

The Siouxland Urology Center in Dakota Dunes has been ordered to contact about 5,700 former patients who were treated at the center since 2002 to warn them of the possibility that they were infected at the clinic, said officials with the South Dakota Health Department.

Sterile saline bags, tubing, and other medical supplies designed to be used on one patient then discarded were instead reused on multiple patients during cystoscopies, a common procedure to diagnose problems in the lower urinary tract. As a result, hepatitis, HIV, and other infectious diseases carried in the blood and other bodily fluids may have been shared among patients through the contaminated medical equipment, officials said.

State health officials said they detected the improper reuse of the items in January 2009 during a routine inspection of the facility and were told by clinic workers that the same practices had been going on since the facility opened. The facility’s state license has been downgraded to provisional as health officials investigate the possibility that infections were transmitted.

The clinic served patients from throughout South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska but so far, no confirmed cases of HIV, hepatitis, or other disease linked to the improper use of medical products have been reported, officials said. The clinic informed patients that the risk of infection from a procedure at the center is “very minimal.”

However, the center is offering free blood tests to former patients to determine whether an infection has been spread.

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