In Russia, doctors infected a girl of 16 months with HIV accidentally while transfusing blood, the investigators told on Monday as they opened criminal probe through the case.
The small girl received blood from a donor which was HIV-infected. The incident took place at a Saint Petersburg’s children’s hospital that stands at number 5, as was told by the Investigative Committee of the city.
Criminal investigation was opened regarding “dangerous services provided to children”, the offence that is countered with the punishment in prison of a sentence of maximum six years.
A blood transfusion was under way for the child after being operated for the life-threatening & dangerous peritonitis that she had developed after the doctors had taken a whole week in realizing the fact that she had engulfed six magnets in a toy.
The girl, Daniella (as named in the media), will have to undergo a long anti-retroviral cure because of being infected with the virus causing AIDS, while needing another operation still.
According to the state officials, the mistake was apparently by the doctors as they didn’t realize that some blood was left in quarantine when the test for HIV was being carried on, reported by the Russian television.
Vladimir Krasnyakov, the doctor in chief at the city’s centre of blood transfusion, informed Channel One TV that doctor who had to carry out transfusion took a batch not noticing the fact that it was impermissible to use it. He said that the doctor did not look closely and that it was human error.
The woman from whom the blood came had not realized that she was already infected with HIV. Vladimir Zholobov, the deputy chairman at the health committee of the city told the Channel One that it was a first-time donor, a woman who had never attended before. It was further added that the woman was examined and her blood was sent to quarantine and that here was a suspicion in this case that the blood was infected with HIV.
PavelAstakhov, ombudsman of Russia’s children, posted on his Twitter profile account that whoever will be found responsible of the act should be identified, then punished severely.
According to a statement to the news agency “RIA Novosti”, the director Vadim Pokrovsky at Russia’s federal centre of AIDS told that the blood is screened for HIV by Russia since 1987 with only less than 50 infection cases from transfusions.
When blood infected with HIV is received in transfusion, it is almost certain the person will contract HIV.
According to the recent official figures from last year’s November, 703 & 731 people n Russia were registered to be HIV-positive, constituting 0.4% of the total population.
With every year, the degree of those infected with HV is on the increase, with a majority contracting the virus by sharing needles while injecting drugs.
The largest cities of Russia, Saint Petersburg and Moscow, suffer from the dearth of those who can donate blood and some serious operations are mostly delayed because suitable blood supply cannot be found.