Dental patients 'may have been exposed to HIV'
More than 1,300 patients of a dental practice may have been exposed to HIV.
A dental health care worker employed at the practice in Barking, east London, has been discovered to be HIV positive.
The worker, who is not being named, worked at the practice between 1997 and 1999.
After trawling through records, health authorities have written to the 1,327 people the worker has treated.
A special helpline has been set up for concerned patients to obtain advice or make a counselling or testing appointment. Anyone taking the HIV test will have to wait a week before they can be given the all clear.
Dr Chris Watts, Barking and Havering Health Authority's director of public health said: "The risk of catching HIV in this way is very small.
"There have been around 20 such cases in the UK, where a health worker has been diagnosed with HIV. But there have been no reported incidences of them passing the virus on to patients."
The dental health care worker involved was discovered by health authorities to be infected last December, but records had to be examined to make sure the information could be released.
A spokesman for Barking and Havering Health Authority said: "It is very important to handle everything correctly. We had to carefully check records to ensure we didn't alarm anybody who is at risk, and we needed to set up counselling facilities to help those who are."
It is not standard practice for health authorities to carry out tests on potential employees, although workers do have an obligation to notify them.
The spokesman said that so far, 541 patients, who received a letter, had called the special helpline and 460 were waiting for counselling or tests. In the first batch of the test results, 31 samples were negative.
