ChimpumCallao
Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: your mom
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 Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:06 pm Post subject: OH *%^&! |
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http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/09/06/200509060037.asp
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HIV-infected blood used to make drugs
The health authorities admitted yesterday that they provided HIV-infected blood to a patient late last year without knowing that the blood was contaminated.
The blood was also supplied to a drug company which used it as an ingredient in medicine. A total 19,000 bottles of the medicine was then distributed.
The blood was donated by a HIV-positive male on Dec.1 last year and was transfused into a 26-year-old woman who had a traffic accident 15 days later. HIV is the virus that can develop into AIDS.
The woman, identified by her family name Huh, died one day after she received the transfusion. If she had survived, she would have become a carrier of HIV.
The health officials' forced confession came after Ko Kyung-hwa, a lawmaker who is a member of the main opposition Grand National Party, revealed that the HIV-positive blood had been circulated.
The health authorities are suspected of hiding the incident given that it did not inform Huh's family of the fact that the blood donated to her was tainted with HIV.
The Korean Red Cross, which carries out blood services, said that the accident happened because the HIV test cannot detect the virus during the 20-day incubation period.
The new test, called NAT, was introduced in January this year to shorten the period, but it still cannot detect HIV within 10-12 days of contracting the virus, the Korean Red Cross said.
"We cannot help it. Other industrialized countries have accidents once or twice a year where patients are infected with AIDS as a result of contaminated blood transfusions," said Park Hyoung-joon, a spokesperson for the Korean Red Cross.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to investigate whether or not the Korean Red Cross made mistakes in examining the blood samples given that the blood turned out to be HIV-positive when the ministry retested it.
The medicine tainted by HIV was also produced by a drug company, identified by its initial N. The drugs include Albumin injections, immunoglobulin injections and blood-clotting drugs. The blood used for the medicine also contained the HIV virus contracted from a 24-year-old man who gave a blood transfusion in September last year.
The Korean Food and Drug Administration allows drug companies to sell drugs made from HIV-infected blood, believing HIV becomes extinct after being treated many times in the process of making drugs. The blood infected with HIV is required to be discarded only when it is found before making drugs.
The health authorities said viruses have been removed by the new method of processing viruses which was introduced around 1994.
A team of medical and pharmaceutical experts concluded that there was a possibility during 1990-1993 that some hemophiliacs were infected with HIV because of medicine prepared from the blood.
The court also judged in July that a pharmaceutical company should compensate a hemophiliac who claimed to be infected with HIV after being injected by the firm's blood-clotting drug.
"It is shocking that a patient underwent a transfusion using HIV-infected blood, but a bigger problem is that the drugs can be on sale just because they have already been processed," Rep. Ko Kyung-hwa said.
Along with a loophole in the law enforcement related to HIV-infected blood, the Korean Food and Drug Administration is under a storm of criticism from the public for being late in taking countermeasures against the accident.
The administration was informed on April 26 that HIV-infected blood was circulated, but health officials did not inform the drug company of this fact until three days later.
As of July 17, 680 Koreans have died from AIDS-related illnesses, leaving the actual number of HIV-positive Koreans at 3,798, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said.
([email protected])
By Jin Hyun-joo |
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