Faulty HIV kits spreading disease

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India fears faulty HIV kits spreading disease

 

By Bappa Majumdar

Reuters

Independent Online

Thursday, November 2, 2006

 

Kolkata - Faulty blood-testing kits

for HIV and hepatitis may have been

fraudulently sold to government

clinics across India, possibly

resulting in people receiving

transfusions of infected blood,

officials said on Thursday.

 

The government is seizing kits

across the country and has ordered

a probe into the possible fraud

after two brothers appeared in a

Kolkata court on Monday accused of

selling hundreds of thousands of

blood-testing kits long past their

expiry date.

 

Govind and Ghansyam Sharma, whose

company Monozyme India has several

contracts to supply the kits to the

government, deny charges of

malpractice and forgery.

 

Both are still in police custody

after being denied bail.

 

" The Kolkata police findings have a

strong nationwide connection and we

have ordered seizures of kits from

every other state, " said P K Hota,

who retired on Wednesday as India's

health secretary.

 

" We will... find out how many

people have been infected by HIV or

hepatitis and rectify the

mistakes, " he added.

 

The news follows a report published

by Britain's Royal Society of

Medicine which said that India

dangerously underestimated the

number of its estimated 5,7 million

HIV-infected people who caught the

virus through reused needles in

hospitals and similar hygiene

lapses.

 

The US researchers, writing in the

society's International Journal of

STD (sexually transmitted disease)

and Aids, said India is placing too

much emphasis on preventing the

sexual transmission of the virus.

 

India says more than 80 percent of

HIV-infected people caught the

virus while having sex, much of the

time with prostitutes.

 

The report says these figures are

inflated and are blinding India to

preventing other routes of

transmission.

 

Whistleblower

 

A tip-off from an employee at

Monozyme resulted in police in the

eastern state of West Bengal, of

which Kolkata is the capital,

finding more than 100 000 obsolete

blood-test kits in blood banks

across the state.

 

Monozyme India had supplied the

kits, which are used to screen

potential blood donors, to at least

nine other Indian states, police in

Kolkata said.

 

Two other medical supply companies

are now also under investigation

suspected of similar fraud.

 

There are already reports of people

catching HIV after receiving blood

from donors who were wrongly given

the all-clear.

 

Sailen Ghosh, secretary of the

Thalassaemia (a blood disorder) and

Aids Prevention Society in Kolkata,

told Reuters he knew of at least

six people who caught HIV in the

last year after receiving routine

blood transfusions.

 

Police said the number of people

infected with HIV and hepatitis

after receiving badly screened

blood could run into thousands.

 

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1 & click_id=31 & art_id=qw1162459440650S325

 

 

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi

Om Shanti

 

 

 

 

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