India probes transfusions after 23 kids get HIV

September 12, 2011 in HIV & AIDS

At least 23 children who received blood transfusions have tested positive for HIV, Indian officials said on Monday as authorities launched an investigation into a government hospital.

The infected children, aged between five to 10 years, suffer from thalassaemia, a that requires regular transfusions.

Parents said their children received fresh blood at a public hospital in Junagadh district in the western state of Gujarat, 315 kilometres (195 miles) from the city of Ahmedabad.

"We have initiated an inquiry into the case. This is a very serious matter," the state's principal Rajesh Kishore told AFP without giving further details.

All the 23 children had received free blood transfusions between January and August, reports said.

Earlier, Gujarat's Jay Narayan Vyas told reporters that the children may have been infected after receiving blood "at some other places" but parents have blamed tainted blood at the government hospital.

He also said some pre-transfusion tests at another state-run hospital had found that the children already had been infected with HIV.

Indian government estimates that about 2.5 million Indians are living with HIV.

(c) 2011 AFP

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Nanobanano
Sep 12, 2011

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This is why blood transfusions should come from close relatives or friends whenever possible. Not saying a friend or relative "couldn't" have HIV, but you'd be more likely to know it, and they would be more likely to to be aware, at least for your sake.

This is really terrible that 23 children's lives have essentially been ruined and cut short because of this, on top of their already obviously annoying and life threatening genetic disorders.

One wonders how a mistake of this magnitude could even happen. It seems almost as if it would have to be either deliberate, or one of the worst cases of incompetence on the part of the clinic as imaginable. After all, there HAVE been known cases of people knowingly, deliberately spreading HIV and other infections inside hospitals as "revenge" against the more healthy and the more moral, as well as other hospital murders, such as the "Angel of Death" guy who used epinephrin to kill people.
Nanobanano
Sep 12, 2011

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There are no words to describe nor to comfort a family in this terrible debacle.

This is as bad (and even evil if it was intentional) as are murders and aggravated rapes.

I wonder what measures India's legal system has in place to handle such horrible medical malpractice situations?

They came in sick, and they left 'dying' of one of the world's most dreadfu and incurable disease. That's gotta be pretty bad on a hospital's reputation.
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rare genetic disorder, health secretary, health minister, transfusion, hiv, children, blood, hospital, government
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