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Texas Man Contracts HIV From Donated Blood

Infected Blood Came From San Antonio Blood Bank

SAN ANTONIO -- A Texas man contracted the HIV virus following a contaminated blood transfusion.

The infected blood was traced to the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center in San Antonio, said Shelly Valdez, director of the center.

Valdez said a man donated the contaminated blood in August 2001. He reportedly did not test positive for HIV despite a highly sensitive screening process.

Apparently, the donor got infected with HIV 10 days before he donated the blood and the test didn't detect the antibodies, Valdez said.

It was not until four months later when the man, who was a regular donor, donated blood again did a test detect HIV, Valdez said. She added that previous donations were traced and tested negative.

The infected blood was shipped to Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas, in October 2001, where some of it was used in a blood transfusion for a male patient who had open heart surgery. That patient tested later positive for HIV.

Other patients were also given the same blood, but they later tested negative for HIV, hospital officials said.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2002

Answers

Yep...Temple is just down the road a piece from us, and this is the big news story of the night. Haven't heard anymore than what apoc has reported, but will update if/when I hear/read more about it.

On one of the cut-in news blurbs tonight, they first mentioned that the patient who contracted HIV through the tainted blood was a distant relative of Gene Autry. Later updates excluded this information though...

Pretty scary...Scott and White is a HUGE medical center complex, with quite a reputation in the region.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2002

My concern is that there could be hundreds or thousands (or more) of people who are getting this tainted blood. How long will it take for them to develop a test that will isolate the blood? Is it possible? Can they refine the test so that it is possible to detect exposure within minutes or hours of the exposure? Can they change the donation laws that if you've had sex within the past X number of days that you can't donate? Horrible... simply horrible!

If you know you are going to have a major surgery that requires you get blood (and you know well ahead of time), let them take your own blood and store it to feed back into you. Scares the crap out of me that my mother had a open-heart surgery and had to be given plenty of blood. Some was her own, but some wasn't. While it has been years ago, I worried about this same situation at the time.

When they cut on my foot, they asked that if I needed blood did I want donated blood. My answer - just make sure I don't need it.

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2002

the other scary thing is people can test negative for quite a while before finally showing as infected. There is no set time frame, really. Some show right away, some after a little time, some years later.

Those patients that are considered in the risk group should demand free testing on a regular basis from now on, there is no real cut off date.

scary indeed.

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2002