Patients Receive a Worrisome Letter

4K Clinic Patients Receive a Worrisome Letter

New Jersey facility informs them they may have been exposed to HIV, should get tested

By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff

   (Getty/Dutko)

Nearly 4,000 people who visited a New Jersey surgical clinic this year have received the worst kind of letter:
It informs them they might have been exposed to a number of diseases, including HIV, and should get tested. The state health department says patients of the HealthPlus Surgery Center in Bergen County also may have been exposed to hepatitis B and hepatitis C, reports NJ.com. The good news is that no infections have been reported so far, and health officials consider the risk to be low, but they're still urging the tests out of "an abundance of caution."

"Deficiencies in infection control in both our sterilization/cleaning of instruments and the injection of medications may have exposed patients to blood borne pathogens," the clinic's administrator tells northjersey.com. The state shut down the clinic in early September and allowed it to reopen later the same month after fixes were put in place.