India probes child HIV cases after blood transfusions
17 Sep BBC
An investigation has been launched into how 23 children who received
regular blood transfusions have tested positive for HIV in the Indian
state of Gujarat.
The children suffer from thalassaemia and get their blood
transfusions at a public hospital in Junagadh district.
Hospital authorities have denied that the children were infected by
their blood supplies.
But state authorities have launched a probe after routine tests of
nearly 100 children revealed the latest cases.
About 2.5m people in India have the HIV virus, according to UN-backed
government figures. Gujarat, along with Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, account
for 22% of HIV infections in India.
The 23 infected children in the latest case are aged between five and
10 years.
They showed positive for HIV following recent tests of nearly 100
children suffering from thalassaemia and who receive blood transfusions
at the hospital twice a week.
Gujarat Health Minister Jay Narayan Vyas said that the children may
have been infected after receiving transfusions “at some other places”.
He also said some pre-transfusion tests at the hospital had found that
the children already had HIV.
But the parents of the infected children insist that they only ever
got transfusions at the Junagadh government hospital.
“We have never gone anywhere else [for blood transfusions]. How can
they (authorities) say that children were affected with the virus before
getting registered?,” Salim Sheikh, the father of one child, told The
Indian Express newspaper.
Indian authorities say the number of annual new HIV infections has
declined by more than 50% during the last decade.
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