The government has constituted an expert team to enquire into the complaint that a nine-year-old child who had been undergoing blood transfusion as part of cancer treatment at the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) had later tested HIV-positive.
All treatment expenses of the child will also be borne by the Health Department, a statement by Health Minister K.K. Shylaja said.
The enquiry team, which will be headed by the Joint Director of Medical Education, K. Sreekumari, will have experts from the Pathology department, blood bank and anti-retroviral treatment division. None of the enquiry team members will be from the RCC or the Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzha medical colleges.
RCC statement
In a statement here, the RCC said that it had already launched an internal investigation into the circumstances which might have led to the unfortunate incident. The child had been referred from the Alappuzha Medical College to the RCC on March 1, with suspected leukaemia.
The child was registered as a patient on the same day and leukaemia was confirmed. The patient had been tested prior to the bone marrow examination and had been HIV negative. Chemotherapy was started on March 3 and so far, 49 units of blood products has been transfused in the patient. The patient tested HIV-positive on August 25, during routine blood tests.
The RCC said that while blood-borne infections could be transmitted through blood transfusion, unsafe injections or non-sterile dental procedures, HIV infection had a window period of four to twelve weeks, within which an infected person might not test positive. The RCC said its blood bank had the licence of Central Drug Standard Control Organisation and all guidelines for receiving blood from donors and for ensuring that the blood products were free from blood-borne pathogens were followed in the institution.