Tweet
HIV blood scandal in China
BEIJING - AT LEAST 80 hospital patients in central China were infected with HIV through contaminated blood, according to a state media report that highlighted the continuing impact of a 1990s blood-selling scandal.
The patients at the No. 2 Hospital in Hubei province's Daye city were infected after receiving transfusions of blood sold by several local residents who were later found to have HIV, the Wuhan Morning Post said on Wednesday.
It said the blood-sellers were believed to have been infected earlier in neighbouring Henan province, the area worst affected by a huge Aids scandal in the 1990s that saw entire villages devastated by the disease.
Many people in central China were infected after repeatedly selling their blood to collection stations that pooled it into a tub and then injected it back into them after taking the plasma.
The infections in Daye have received attention recently after one patient tested positive for HIV in September and contested the amount of compensation offered by the hospital, the report said. Doctors at the Daye hospital were unaware that the blood was contaminated when it was given to patients, it said. Some of the 80 victims then passed the virus on to their wives or children, which brought the total number of infected to around 100, according to the report.
Dr Xu Chunyang, the hospital's deputy director who was quoted by the paper as the source of the report, would not confirm the figures when contacted by AFP. 'We can still not determine (how many were infected),' he said, refusing further comment. -- AFP
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking...ry_480638.html
The patients at the No. 2 Hospital in Hubei province's Daye city were infected after receiving transfusions of blood sold by several local residents who were later found to have HIV, the Wuhan Morning Post said on Wednesday.
It said the blood-sellers were believed to have been infected earlier in neighbouring Henan province, the area worst affected by a huge Aids scandal in the 1990s that saw entire villages devastated by the disease.
Many people in central China were infected after repeatedly selling their blood to collection stations that pooled it into a tub and then injected it back into them after taking the plasma.
The infections in Daye have received attention recently after one patient tested positive for HIV in September and contested the amount of compensation offered by the hospital, the report said. Doctors at the Daye hospital were unaware that the blood was contaminated when it was given to patients, it said. Some of the 80 victims then passed the virus on to their wives or children, which brought the total number of infected to around 100, according to the report.
Dr Xu Chunyang, the hospital's deputy director who was quoted by the paper as the source of the report, would not confirm the figures when contacted by AFP. 'We can still not determine (how many were infected),' he said, refusing further comment. -- AFP
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking...ry_480638.html
Comment