Australian soldiers and contractors might have been exposed to blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis or HIV after staff at Defense’s main hospital unit in the Middle East failed to sterilize surgical equipment properly.
It has been found that this breach of universal precaution and protocol at the al-Minhad air base continued for 19 months in 2009 and 2010 during heavy fighting and significant casualties for Australian troops, but soldiers were not alerted to the problem until last week. Al-Minhad base is the central staging point for Australian troops in the Middle East, including the fighting forces in Afghanistan. The department has previously disclosed there were 37 serious combat-related injuries in Afghanistan in 2009, and 65 last year. But many of those who have life-threatening injuries are flown straight to Germany for treatment.
This came to light after a Defense Department memo to troops has warned that soldiers and contractors who passed through the air base hospital near Dubai should ensure they had their blood screened. It read, “The al-Minhad air base health facility of Joint Task Force 633 has identified lapses in procedure in the operation of the surgical instrument sterilizer … during the period February 2009 to August 2010… As a consequence the sterilization of surgical instruments at the facility cannot be absolutely guaranteed to have met Australian standards…Personnel who underwent a surgical procedure (e.g. excision of skin lesions, minor operations) during that period are possibly at risk of acquiring a blood-borne disease.” The machine failure occurred between February 2009 and August 2010 but the memo was not issued until May 16 - nine months after the errors were discovered and corrected.
According to infectious disease control expert, Richard West, such “lapses” were rare in normal Australian hospitals and he expressed concern that it took so long to identify the problem. He said, “The highest risk is hepatitis C because patients cannot be vaccinated … there has been the occasional report of HIV being transmitted in the operating theatre… It is unusual that it has taken that long to detect that there is a problem.”
The memo was signed by Major-General Paul Alexander, the surgeon-general of the Australian Defense Force, who is fighting numerous fires in his portfolio. There is a continuing “investigating officers inquiry” into claims of negligence at the medical centre at HMAS Albatross near Nowra and the department's health programs have been repeatedly criticised by a serving captain and GP, Julian Fidge, who claims there is “widespread” contempt for medical professionals within the chain of command.
The health alert said, “'The potential risk to Australian Defense Force personnel is assessed as low … as blood-borne diseases within the ADF population are extremely rare and all ADF members are vaccinated against hepatitis B …This was an internal procedural issue that was detected and rectified by the health system…Measures have been put in place to prevent a repeat of this procedural error and improve governance systems for deployed ADF healthcare.”
Interferon-beta deficiency alters brain response in neuroHIV mouse model