Risk of hepatitis C after immunoadsorption

Rolf Kaiser1, Oliver Geulen, Bertfried Matz

  • 1Institute of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Bonn, Germany.

An episode of acute hepatitis in a patient with hemophilia during immunoadsorption therapy initially was misinterpreted as a reactivated hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, but ultimately was shown to be an exogenous reinfection during cohort treatment with another HCV-positive patient. This incident illustrates that policies for the prevention of nosocomial transmission of blood-borne pathogens, especially in cohort treatment units, may need to be reassessed.

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