Investigators suspect cause is blood-borne

BEIJING - Blood-borne transmission, such as unsafe intravenous injections and infusions of unscreened blood, has been the major cause of hepatitis C outbreaks in high-risk areas in China in recent years, experts said.

Zhang Hongfei, chief doctor at the infectious-disease department at the People's Liberation Army No 302 Hospital, said exposure through sex, childbirth, cosmetic surgery, intravenous drug use, transplantation and invasive medical procedures, such as gastroscopy, can also be potential sources of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections.

In the end of 2009, at least 64 people were infected with HCV after receiving blood transfusions in Pingtang county hospital in Guizhou province. The source was traced to the infected blood of the donor Li Cailing, 43, of Jiangsu province, who repeatedly donated up to 20,000 ml of blood to the hospital to earn money from October 1998 to June 2002.