Single Means Single

The start of a trial in Las Vegas highlights a patient safety issue-single use medication vials. An operator of an endoscopy clinic and a CRNA are accused of causing a hepatitis C outbreak that infected 7 people, killed one and alarmed more than 50,000 that had to be monitored for infection. At issue-single use vials were used for multiple patients. Some practitioners do not feel the practice of using single use vials for different patients is particularly risky, if a new syringe and needle or needleless adaptor is used each time. However, these single use vials have no preservative and are easily contaminated. The Centers for Disease Control report 19 outbreaks in the last five years. Drug shortages may exacerbate the problem, as organizations try to preserve their allotments of scarce medications.