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Three women contract HIV from dirty "vampire facials" at unlicensed spa

Five patients with links to the spa had viral genetic sequences that closely matched.

The woman had no clear risk factors for acquiring the infection: no injection drug use, no blood transfusions, and her current and only recent sexual partner tested negative. The health officials reopened their outbreak investigation in 2023 and found a fifth case that was diagnosed in the spring of 2023, which was also in a woman aged 40 to 50 who had received a vampire facial in the summer of 2018. "Incomplete spa client records posed a substantial challenge during this investigation, necessitating a large-scale outreach approach to identify potential cases," the authors acknowledge.

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