Correspondence

Transmission of Hepatitis C Virus

N Engl J Med 2001; 344:1478May 10, 2001

Article

To the Editor:

With regard to our article on the transmission of hepatitis C virus from a patient to an anesthesiology assistant and subsequently to five other patients (Dec. 21 issue),1 we wish to clarify two points. First, the anesthesiology assistant was not a physician but a nurse who assisted the anesthetist.

Second, the cases we described have been the subject of legal proceedings. As virologists at the German National Reference Center for Hepatitis C, the two of us were asked by judicial authorities to elucidate the circumstances of the suspected nosocomial spread of the virus. Two of our coauthors, Drs. Hofmann and Seipp, were consulted as experts in occupational medicine and hygiene. The four of us were paid for writing reports to the judicial authorities.

R. Stefan Ross, M.D.
Michael Roggendorf, M.D.
University of Essen, D-45122 Essen, Germany

1 References

1. 1

   Ross RS, Viazov S, Gross T, Hofmann F, Seipp H-M, Roggendorf M. Transmission of hepatitis C virus from a patient to an anesthesiology assistant to five patients. N Engl J Med 2000;343:1851-1854
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