Exeter Hospital Hepatitis C Victim Toll Rises

Another patient has tested positive for hepatitis C, upping the victim toll in an outbteak there to 32 patients.

Prosecutors have said the outbreak was started by hospital employee Dave Kwiatkowski, who was after allegedly spreading his hepatitis C by injecting himself with patients' needles to get high.

State health officials today announced an additional patient tested positive for hepatitis C, a potentially deadly liver disease.

The patient was treated in the cardiac catheterization lab where Kwiatkowski worked. So far all of the infected patients were treated in the cath lab.

Officials said the latest patient had a procedure prior to Kwiatkowski's first day on the job at Exeter Hospital. They said they will test other hospital workers to make sure nobody else was involved in the outbreak.

"We will continue to thoroughly investigate the circumstances surrounding this infection," said state epidemiologist Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis in a statement. "To rule out that any other staff was involved we have recommended testing of certain Exeter Hospital employees."

More than 4,000 patients have been identified for testing because they could have been exposed to the outbreak. The state and local hospitals are still in the process of testing all of them.