Portland to pay teen who got hepatitis C from mom

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The city of Portland has agreed to pay $89,000 to the 18-year-old son of a city police officer who was infected with Hepatitis C while working in the late 1990s.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports (https://goo.gl/KVEVOp ) the teen is believed to have contracted Hepatitis C while his mother was pregnant with him.

City documents say the officer spent much of the 1990s working undercover posing as a prostitute and a drug buyer and that she was bitten, pricked by intravenous drug needles and exposed to the blood of suspects. Documents say at least three suspects said they had Hepatitis C.

A medical expert hired by the city “determined to a reasonable degree of medical certainty” that the officer was infected with Hepatitis C one of those times.

The payment is to cover related medical expenses.

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Information from: The Oregonian/OregonLive, http://www.oregonlive.com