A HEALTH worker in the southeast has become the first person to have contracted HIV through a routine blood transfusion, according to a spokesman for the Blood Transfusion Service Board.
She received the transfusion for a routine medical condition in the summer of 1985, only months before the Blood Transfusion Service Board introduced HIV testing in October 1985.
However, a spokesman for the BTSB acknowledged that "there could be between five and 15" other cases of HIV infection from routine blood transfusions prior to 1985.
There are 16 blood products from HIV infected donors which remain untraced by the BTSB, one of which is likely to be this case.
However, according to a spokesman for the BTSB, about two thirds of those who received these products are likely to have died from the conditions for which they received the transfusion in the first place, like leukemia, for example.
The maximum incubation period for HIV is between 10 and 12 years. It is now 11 years since the BTSB introduced a screening for the virus, so it is likely that anyone who contracted it from a blood transfusion before then would have shown symptoms by now.
It is understood that the woman who has just been diagnosed became ill while on holiday recently, and her condition was diagnosed abroad. Her employer, the South Eastern Health Board, was immediately notified and she has not returned to work in St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny.
Thirteen patients of the hospital have been contacted about their possible exposure to the HIV virus. However, the risk is thought to be slight, as she is not a doctor and did not work in the hospital's operating theatre.
According to the SEHB, she was present at "a small number of exposure prone procedures, all of which are in the low risk category." The board was informing the public fully of the "insignificant" risk because inaccurate rumours might harm the hospital's reputation.
Anyone who is concerned can contact the SEHB's freephone at 1800 300655.