By Angella Semu

INDIANA-(MaraviPost)-Goshen hospital in Indiana has identified 1,182 surgical patients who may have been infected with HIV, hepatitis C and hepatitis B viruses as a result of error in sanitizing procedure for surgical equipment.

According to the press release from the hospital, a technician who was assigned to process the surgical equipment missed one step that left the equipments with the possibly of still containing some viruses.

According to marketing specialist for Goshen Health, Liz Fisher, those who may have been exposed were sent notification letters and are being offered free testing for the viruses.

The hospital maintains that those the percentage of those who may have been likely affected is very low and the free testing for the viruses is being offered “out of an abundance of caution.”

As quoted by CNN, the hospital’s president and chief medical officer said: “While our sterile processing and infectious disease experts believe that the potential transmission of blood borne viruses between patients is extremely remote, out of an abundance of caution, we want to verify through lab blood tests that patients have not been harmed.”