Heart surgeon hid hepatitis B for 24 years

Up to 5,000 German patients may be called in for tests after a heart surgeon was found to have concealed for 24 years the fact he was carrying the hepatitis B virus.

Thomas Oppermann, the science minister of Lower Saxony state, said there were firm suspicions that two patients were infected with the disease by the surgeon, a professor at Goettingen’s University Clinic, who wasn’t identified and has been banned from operating.