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Researchers have estimated that the incidence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among injection-drug users ranges from 16% to 42% per year, and that, for each exposure to a contaminated syringe, the probability of HCV acquisition is 5- to 20-fold higher than the probability of HIV acquisition. Believing that prolonged virus survival in contaminated syringes might be playing a role, investigators used a microculture assay to evaluate the viability of HCV at various temperatures.
Syringes were loaded with blood that had been spiked with a genetically modified laboratory HCV clone; after storage, the contents were cultured in human hepatoma cells. HCV survival was examined for two syringe types: the low void volume insulin syringe with an at…