Health officials have reached out to 4,800 people who had been treated at a Utah hospital warning them of a possible exposure to a rare type of hepatitis C.
The Utah Health Department is encouraging the former McKay-Dee Hospital patients to get tested even though one spokesman said the chances of them having the disease are low, according to ABC News.
Health department officials believe a former employee at the Ogden, Utah hospital may have exposed her patients to the disease.
The employee, who has since been fired and charged with several counts of possession of a controlled substance, admitted to hospital administrators that she had been diverting drugs and keeping them for her own use.
Hospital officials grew suspicious when two people, including an emergency room nurse and a patient, tested positive for the same rare type of hepatitis C.
The disease is typically contracted at hospitals by receiving donated blood or using contaminated equipment like needles.
