The boy was getting a blood transfusion at the Red Cross Society every 15 days for almost three years, and tested HIV positive on 20 July.
In Hyderabad, a three-and-a-half-year-old boy who was suffering from thalassemia tested positive for HIV. (Creative Commons)
A case has been filed against the Red Cross Society blood bank in Hyderabad after a three-and-a-half-year-old boy, who was suffering from thalassemia, tested positive for HIV.
The boy was seven months old when he was diagnosed with thalassemia, his father Ballam Shiva told South First.
“He was getting a blood transfusion at the Nallakunta Red Cross Society every 15 days. He tested positive for HIV on 20 July,” Shiva added.
The family approached the Nallakunta Police Station on 30 July, and on 8 August an FIR was filed under Section 338 (causing grievous hurt by endangering life) against the blood bank.
After getting diagnosed with thalassemia, the boy was taken to the blood bank for the first time on 22 October, 2019.
“I have taken my son to this blood bank and got transfusions from it the last two years and 10 months,” said Siva.
The boy’s father alleged that doctors at the blood centre conducted a blood test on him on 20 July without their permission, and then informed him that the boy had tested HIV positive.
“We have been giving transfusions to the child regularly for the last three years. We have given 42 transfusions to the child. We have been providing blood, drugs, and investigation to the child for free. We do the blood test of every thalassemia patient every year. I tested all the children, and found he was HIV positive. I informed the patient’s parents in person,” the Red Cross Society’s Hyderabad Director Dr K Pitchi Reddy told South First.
“We asked the doctors how my son was infected with HIV and there was no response from them. I and my wife went to a private laboratory at Bowenpally and had ourselves tested, and we were HIV negative. We got ourselves tested again, this time at Niloufer Hospital, and again we had no infection, but our son tested HIV positive,” said Shiva.
Reddy said that the doctors at the society check the blood samples before the transfusion, according to Supreme Court guidelines.
“Before transfusion, we check for the five types of infectants — HIV, malaria, syphilis, hepatitis-B, and hepatitis-C — as mandated by the Supreme Court. Only then do we conduct transfusions. All our records are clean. We used blood that didn’t test positive for any of the infectants,” he claimed.
However, Reddy also pointed out that there was a possibility the infection in the blood could have flown under the radar.
“There is a medical term called ‘window period’. One donor was suffering from rheumatoid tetanus, but his blood didn’t test positive for any of the diseases for which we screen,” said Reddy.
There is a possibility, he said, that this person could be HIV positive, but it didn’t show up in the test because it was in the window period: when the virus was still in the incubation phase and not fully developed.
Reddy added that National AIDS Control Organisation and Supreme Court guidelines themselves have an error margin of 0.01 percent.
He also said that the society had met police officials and explained everything to them.
“We are clean and have provided every record to them,” said Reddy.
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