Former Las Vegas endoscopy clinic owner, Dr Dipak DESAI, 63, has been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 18 years, following his criminal convictions in what is believed to be the largest hepatitis C outbreak in the USA.

Clark County District Judge Valerie Adair sentenced DESAI yesterday.  The former state medical board member was found guilty in July of 27 criminal charges, including second-degree murder, in a viral outbreak in 2007 that officials traced to his clinics.  DESAI was convicted in the death of 77-year-old Rodolfo Meana in April 2012, and authorities have since reported the death of a second infected person in the case.  Michael Washington, 73, died on 23 August in Dallas TX of complications from the disease. Prosecutors haven’t decided whether to press additional murder charges, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

DESAI had created a penny-pinching work environment at the Endoscopy Clinic of Southern Nevada, emphasising profits over patient safety and leading to unsafe clinic and injection practices that spread the virus.  The outbreak was believed to be the nation’s largest when it became public in February 2008.

The Southern Nevada Health District notified 63,000 former clinic patients to get tested for potentially fatal blood-borne diseases, including hepatitis and HIV.  Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta later determined nine people had contracted hepatitis C at two DESAI clinics.  Authorities later said hepatitis C infections of another 105 patients might have been related.