Pregnant woman gets HIV after infected blood transfusion in Tamil Nadu

In a case of medical negligence, a pregnant woman from Tamil Nadu has contracted HIV after she was given infected blood at a Government Hospital earlier this December.

The donor wasn’t aware of his condition while he donated blood in 2016. When he learned that he tested positive for HIV in November, he voluntarily informed the lab technicians at the Sivakasi Government Hospital where he had donated blood. The Health Department Officials who were then informed traced the donated blood and found that it had been transfused to the 23-year-old pregnant woman from Sattur. She was then brought in for tests, where she was found to be HIV positive as well.

Following this, Health Officials revoked the services of the lab technician who gave the daily report, the counsellor who did not identify that the donor was in the high-risk category, and the blood bank’s medical officer. Meanwhile, the woman has been put on anti-retroviral treatment to fight the virus from replicating, but the family needs to wait until the birth of the child to determine whether or not the baby is infected with HIV.

Meanwhile, the government has promised to bear the entire medical expense for the woman, along with offering government jobs for her and her husband. However, the woman wishes to seek private treatment after the negligence.