DOH: Measures in place to monitor donated blood tainted with HIV

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Health (DOH) has assured potential blood recipients that blood banks are clean and safe from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Donated blood units undergo screening to ensure that they are not contaminated, according to Dr. Gerard Belimac, director of the DOH’s National AIDS/STI Prevention and Control Program.

The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine on Monday confirmed reports that 124 donated blood units were found contaminated with the virus, which so far has affected 5,729 Filipinos since it was first detected in the country in 1984.

For January to October in 2010 alone, the DOH has officially logged 1,305 new HIV-AIDS cases across the country, of which 15 are full blown AIDS cases. This was a sharp increase from last year’s 835 HIV/AIDS cases.

The HIV causes AIDS or the acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a condition in which the body’s immune systems break down, which could lead to death.

LPGMA party-list Representative Arnel Ty, among others, broke the news about the tainted blood over the weekend, citing reports from the National Voluntary Blood Safety Program, which has been monitoring the purity of donated blood.

But the health department said on Tuesday safeguards have been in place all these years to prevent the transfusion of tainted blood.

“In many years that passed, there was never a single case of HIV transmitted through unsafe blood,” Belimac told reporters on Tuesday.

But he admitted that there were been previous cases in which blood donations turned out to be HIV-positive. But these were immediately detected “so they were not in fact transfused,” he said.

The DOH also said that the 124 blood units found to be contaminated with HIV were immediately discarded.

Belimac advised potential blood donors to go to HIV counseling and testing facilities, instead of using the usual screening process for blood donation to check if they were HIV positive.

“I [encourage] the public to instead go to HIV counseling and testing facilities if their main purpose is to get tested whether or not they are exposed to the virus… to ensure that our blood supply would remain truly safe from all infections,” he said. –Jocelyn R. Uy, Philippine Daily Inquirer