A Winston-Salem hospital apologized Monday after improper sterilization exposed nearly 20 patients to a rare neurological disease. Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center President Jeff Lindsay told a news conference that 18 patients may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. A neurosurgical procedure was done on Jan. 18 on a patient who was later confirmed to have the disease, a degenerative fatal brain disorder. The other 18 patients, all neurosurgical patients, were exposed to surgical equipment that had been cleaned using a typical sterilization procedures, but not the enhanced sterilization procedures used for Creutzfeldt-Jakob.
