I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Dozens of people given free blood sugar tests April 24 are at a slight risk of having been exposed to two forms of Hepatitis and/or HIV, which causes AIDS, due to the improper administration of the testing devices, University of New Mexico School of Medicine officials announced Thursday.
As many as 33 of 55 given the free blood sugar tests at an event at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center could have been exposed to other people’s blood and possibly infected, said Dr. Bob Bailey, associate dean for Clinical Affairs for the UNM School of Medicine.
Officials are trying to track down 52 of the 55 people tested to test them for possible infection, Bailey said, adding that officials had already identified three of those tested.
The April 24 event coincided with Albuquerque’s Gathering of Nations Pow Wow, the largest such event in the nation, meaning some of those tested could have been from out of state or even from out of the country. As a result, UNM School of Medicine officials had alerted the federal Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be on the look out for people who show signs of infection in other states, Bailey said.
“The diseases we are most concerned about are Hepatitis B and C, although theoretically, HIV is also possible,” Bailey said.
Dr. Susan Kellie of the School of Medicine gave an indication of how slight the risk was for infection. There was a .37 percent chance that a person tested April 24 had contracted Hepatitis B, .05 percent chance for Hepatitis C and .003 percent for HIV, she said.
Individuals in danger of having been infected would undergo testing at intervals over a period of up to six months to see if indeed they had contracted one of the diseases due to the errors April 24.
Individuals who were tested that day can call 1-888-899-6092 or visit the UNM web site at http://contact.health.unm.edu for more information and referral for screening, Bailey said.
Dozens of researchers and medical school staff had worked over the past three weeks to determine what actually had happened April 24.
What they had determined by Thursday was that 10 students from the University of New Mexico Physician Assistant program had decided to administer free blood sugar tests and bought the testing devices themselves.
A faculty member from the PA program accompanied the students to the event, where the students administered the tests. The first error occurred when the students employed a particular testing device meant for a single patient on multiple patients, exposing them to another person’s blood, Bailey said.
The students were not properly trained on the device, he added. The third error happened when the students kept no records, so the school had no names of those potentially infected when they began trying to track them down.
“The UNM School of Medicine deeply regrets this error and sincerely apologizes to all those who may have been exposed, and to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center,” Bailey said.
