Nurse may have infected patients with Hepatitis C

Los Angeles: A nurse anaesthetist at a Texas military hospital may have infected up to 15 patients with a potentially fatal strain of Hepatitis C by stealing drugs meant for his patients and "knowingly" passing on his own infection, according to civil and criminal court filing and the report of a federal agency.

According to Daniel Henry, one of the alleged victims, Jon Dale Jones injected drugs meant for Henry into himself and then infected him with hepatitis by injecting Henry with the same needle.

In an indictment, prosecutors in El Paso said Jones secretly and improperly obtained access to a powerful pain-killing drug, fentanyl, earmarked for three patients about to undergo surgery at the William Beaumont Army Medical Centre and, as a result, infected those patients with Hepatitis C, an infectious disease that can lead to liver failure and cancer. The nine count indictment charges Jones, 45, with assault "resulting in serious bodily injury" and obtaining a controlled substance "by fraud, deception and subterfuge".