What happened to the 1,200 Seattle students potentially exposed to hepatitis and HIV?

May 29, 2019 / 4:09 pm

caption: Carlos Urias, a 12-year old at Denny Middle School was so worried about the potential exposure, he asked his mom to get tested. A week later, the results came back -- he was HIV negative. For Carlos' privacy, we're not showing his face.

Two months after Neighborcare, a local low-income healthcare provider alerted some 1200 Seattle students about a mishap, parents and students struggle with mixed emotions.

ars zoom by in the after-school rush in South Park.

Roxana Rivera, a resident and mother of 3, props open her door on a warm day.

A neighbor’s dog is yapping somewhere as children tumble in and out of her house. She calls out to her son Carlos, as she cooks dinner and picks up toys.

He’s a shy 12-year old from Denny Middle School.

In May he had to get tested for HIV.

Roxana and Carlos opted for testing after hearing news about a potential exposure for more than 1000 Seattle students. In late April, Neighborcare alerted families that some dental equipment may not have been sterilized correctly at a dozen school based clinics around the Puget Sound area.

While the chances of infection were low, health officials encouraged testing for hepatitis B, C, and HIV.

Roxana did not get one of those letters warning about the potential exposure but her son Carlos had received dental care at school from Neighborcare.

She says, “Muchas mamas que yo conozco, tambien andan muy preocupadas y enojadas. Yo quería ir a la escuela a preguntar pero cómo hablan puro Ingles, yo por eso no fui. "

"A lot of moms I know were also worried and mad. I wanted to go to the school to ask more questions but didn’t go because they mostly speak English, and I don’t.”

Her son Carlos was so worried he says, "I cried for a week cause I really thought I had HIV."

Although Neighborcare provided free testing for imapcted families, Carlos and Roxana opted to get tested independently.

Then they waited a week.

“When the results came in, I was really glad I didn’t [test positive],” says Carlos.

Neighborcare CEO, Michael Erikson says that since the letters went out, they’ve fielded over 250 calls from patients and their families.

“We had approximately 80 patients that have gone in to testing for which we have received results and there are zero or no positive results to date.”

Erikson confirms there has been a drop off in patient visits at the school dental clinics, but largely because of retraining and their own choice to slow down care.

He adds, “We’ll know over time if the slow down is permanent or restarts back at the previous level.”

While less than 10% of the notified students came back for testing, Neighborcare says others have may gone elsewhere.

As for language accessibility, the letters mailed out to affected families were distributed in Spanish, Vietnamese, and Somali, but only for those who indicated a language preference when they first signed up for services.

Neighborcare says they retrained all the staff at the school based programs and set up accountability measures.

utside of Denny Middle School in West Seattle, three girls play hacky sack after school and share a bag of chips.

They remember seeing friends post about the incident on Snapchat. Some of their classmates got the dreaded letters but none of the three were personally affected.

Lailani Norman Bigspring, an 8th grader says, “Some people are still spooked, but some are now trusting the health clinic because they do good cleanings." She shrugs, "There’s different opinions.”

Lailani hasn’t used the clinic for a couple years anyway but her friend Alia Lacy, a 6th grader snacking noisily on the chips, says her dad doesn’t let her go to the school dental clinic anymore.