Doctors call for ban on multidose vials after hepatitis C outbreak in US

Clinicians have been urged to boycott drugs sold in large multidose vials that encourage the practice known as “double dipping.” Instead they should persuade pharmacies to buy safer single dose ampoules or prefilled syringes, leading specialists say.

The warning comes as US hospitals assess the effect of a $505m (£330m; €390m) award in damages in May 2010 to a patient who contracted hepatitis C while undergoing colonoscopy at a prestigious Las Vegas clinic in 2008. Investigators from the Southern Nevada Health District closed the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada after watching nurse anaesthetists use a clean needle but the same syringe to draw several doses from a …