SURREY — Anyone who received dental treatment from Valentyn Uvarov in Newton may have been exposed to serious blood-borne diseases, according to a Fraser Health advisory.
Fraser Health issued the advisory on Monday, saying Uvarov had an unlicensed dental practice at 14275-62nd Ave. in Surrey. On April 24, in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, Justice Terry Schultes ordered that Uvarov be permanently restrained from providing dental treatment as long as he is not a registrant of the College of Dental Surgeons of British Columbia (CDSBC). He was also ordered to pay $10,000 to the college, toward covering the costs of its investigation.
The Fraser Health Authority's advisory said Uvarov's clients may be at risk of blood-born infections such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV from exposure to non-sterile materials during their treatment there.
This came to light after the CDSBC found Uvarov was providing dental treatments at this location without a license to practice dentistry and the investigation revealed the “potential re-use of anesthetic containers,†the advisory said. Fraser Health believes this may pose a risk of infectious disease transmission to clients. It's not known how many patients he had, if any. "I don't believe patient records have been found," Anita Wilks, CDSBC spokeswoman, said Monday.
Fraser Health advises anyone who received dental treatments from Uvarov to contact their doctor or call 8-1-1.
Hepatitis B is a virus that attacks the liver and is the main cause of liver cancer, according to HealthLinkBC, but most adults who get it have it for a short time and then get better. As long as you have the virus, it can spread to others.
Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver and in time can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer and liver failure.
HIV, or the Human Immunodificiency Virus, attacks the immune system.
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