CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Health officials across the country are scrambling to identify thousands of patients who may have been exposed to hepatitis C from a traveling medical technician facing criminal charges in New Hampshire.
David Kwiatkowski is accused of stealing anesthetic drugs from Exeter Hospital and contaminating syringes used on patients. Thirty of them have been diagnosed with the same strain of hepatitis C that he carries.
Testing has been recommended for about 4,700 people in New Hampshire alone, and officials are still determining who needs testing in seven other states, including Arizona, where Kwiatkowski was fired in 2010 after being spotted with drugs he wasn't authorized to administer.
Officials have confirmed that Kwiatkowski worked in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania before being hired in New Hampshire last year.
The Associated Press