FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, July 17, 2009

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Mark Salley
Director, Office of Communications
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State Health Department Posts Case Numbers Associated with Hepatitis C Investigation Involving Rose Medical Center and Audubon Surgery Center

 DENVER – The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment today released the first of what will be weekly case numbers on hepatitis C cases associated with the investigation involving a former employee of Rose Medical Center and Audubon Surgery Center.

The department will not be investigating any case before the patient is contacted by the hospital where the patient’s surgery was performed. Approximately 6,000 patients had surgeries performed at one of the facilities during the time the since-fired employee may have exposed surgical patients to hepatitis C. The department’s report of case numbers will not report positive cases until the department’s initial epidemiologic investigation is complete, because there is likely to be a significant number of positive tests that are not related to the potential surgical exposure.

The “positive” hepatitis C lab tests are further classified in our reporting to provide more specific information, as follows:

• Positive/not associated – Indicates a positive HCV (Hepatitis C Virus) test, but determined not to be associated with exposure to the former employee through epidemiologic investigation or laboratory testing. This includes patients with previous positive HCV tests and patients with genotypes other than 1b. (The former employee’s HCV test is genotype 1b.)

• Positive/associated – Indicates a positive HCV test, and determined to be epidemiologically associated with exposure to the former employee. This includes patients without genotype testing and those with genotype 1b.

• Positive/associated and linked by viral sequence analysis – Indicates a positive HCV test, determined to be epidemiologically associated with exposure to the former employee, and the virus was found to be highly related to that of the former employee by viral sequence analysis. [NOTE: Viral sequencing results will not be available for weeks to months.]

• Positive/indeterminate – Indicates a positive HCV test, but genotyping and sequencing could not be performed and patient had other risk factors for hepatitis C. Available laboratory and epidemiologic data is insufficient to associate infection with exposure from the former employee.

In addition to the four “positive” case categories, the department also will be reporting case numbers that test negative for HCV.

The case numbers will be posted on Fridays at http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/dc/Hepatitis/hepc/InvestigationCaseTable.html.

Case Numbers Associated with Hepatitis C Investigation Involving Rose Medical Center and Audubon Surgery Center (as of July 17, 2009)

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