• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Austrian patient receives HIV contaminated blood

Overstressed

Senior Member
Messages
406
Location
Belgium
Today in a Belgian newspaper:

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/960/Buiten...28/Oostenrijkse-patient-kreeg-hiv-bloed.dhtml

The patient received blood contaminated with HIV in an Austrian clinic. Impossible? Apparently not. The blood was tested, the virus was not found, so the patient received the blood...and got infected.

And now the horrifying part: according to the Red-Cross it was not possible to find the virus with the current tests. The risk of hiv in the blood was 1 to 2.5 million...

What are they talking about?! Are patients all over the world at risk?! On the other hand, it again shows how difficult it is to find a virus. Imagine a slow replicating virus, which hiv is not at all.

Best regards,
OS.
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
The blood was tested and nothing found? How do they know he didn't have the infection already, before the transfusion?
 

Overstressed

Senior Member
Messages
406
Location
Belgium
The blood was tested and nothing found? How do they know he didn't have the infection already, before the transfusion?
Hi Adreno,

that's not clear from the article, but somehow they found out the patient must have been infected through the blood bank. And based on what the Red-Cross says, blood banks are not safe. Nearly safe is simply not 100%. I'm surprised to say the least, I thought, at least the banks would be free from HIV.

Best wishes,
OS.
 

Daffodil

Senior Member
Messages
5,875
holy $$@!$@#$#@$

my mother might have surgery overseas and i am terrified she will need blood. she cannot go over there 6 weeks prior to store her own blood....very scary.
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
Ok. But if the chance of getting infected with HIV from a blood bank is 1 in 2.5 million, I'd be more worried about getting run over by a car.
 

snowathlete

Senior Member
Messages
5,374
Location
UK
scary isn't it. Mind you, if you NEED a blood transfusion then you need one you know. Better to take a small risk than die on because you run out of your own blood...

Someone local to me had an incident where they lost some blood, got sent home, then had a heart attack related to the blood loss. Had they given him a blood transfussion (not that they offered) then chances are that he woudlnt have had the heart attack.

I guess with HIV it is difficult to detect because it mutates so much?

Thing is, if you were healthy you might be offered someones blood from people like us, and other illnesses that are generally considered 'safe'...If you knew what we know you might not feel keen on having it...