More than 300 patients undergoing dialysis at Dublin's Beaumont Hospital are to be tested for hepatitis B after one patient receiving the treatment was found this week to have been infected with the virus at some stage in the past.
The discovery has promoted the hospital to test all dialysis patients for the virus to ensure there has been no cross-infection. But Beaumont said yesterday the likelihood of any cross-infection having occurred was "relatively small".
In a statement it said that before commencing dialysis, the patient who has now tested positive was tested for the virus, and the result was negative. All new dialysis patients are tested for both hepatitis B and C, it stressed.