Is HIV Screened Blood Safe?
THIS question came to the fore in Nigeria when it was found that a baby girl was infected with HIV through a blood transfusion she received at one of Nigeria’s leading hospitals.
According to the hospital’s medical director, soon after Eniola’s birth, she was found to be jaundiced. An exchange blood transfusion was prescribed, and the father donated some units of blood. But the father’s blood was found to be incompatible, so blood from the hospital’s blood bank was administered. Before long, the baby tested positive for HIV, though both parents tested negative. According to the hospital, “the blood transfused into the baby was screened and found to be HIV-negative at the time it was transfused into the baby.”
How, then, did the baby get infected? The Nigerian government investigated the controversy and concluded that the likely source of the infection was the transfused blood. The Nigerian Tribune newspaper quoted
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