|
SINGAPORE, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Singapore government will invite international experts to help the current Independent Review Committee (IRC) look into the cause of mass infection of Hepatitis C at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH), Minister for Health Gan Kim Yong said on Saturday.
"The committee has been working for the last 2 weeks, focusing on the cause of the Hepatitis C cases at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH), looking at how it happened and also try to determine how we can prevent it from happening in future. The committee will also look at the processes in both SGH and the Ministry of Health to identify whether there are any gaps and areas that we can improve upon so that we can strengthen our system. I have also assured the Committee that SGH and MOH will extend our full support so as to facilitate the review and to ensure that it is a very thorough review," he said.
A total of 485 out of 678 patients have been screened for Hepatitis C after 22 patients have been diagnosed with the virus at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) earlier this month. Among them, 441 have received their results and all are negative.
Initial investigation showed that "the source of infection might be due to intravenous (IV) injectable agents."
