“Serious situation”: Six patients with HIV after receiving infected organs in Brazil

Authorities in Brazil ordered to suspend the PCS Lab Saleme laboratory and carry out new tests on the allegedly infected organs

Text: RFI/AFP

Six patients who received an organ transplant tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the state of Rio de Janeiro, in a “serious” case that the authorities are investigating, the Brazilian Ministry of Health reported this Friday.

Tests carried out on two donors by a private laboratory contracted by the Rio de Janeiro health system tested positive for the virus after initially testing negative.

“So far we have received confirmation that two donors had a new positive test for HIV and six recipients also tested positive,” Health Minister Nísia Trindade said in a statement, describing a “serious situation.”

The authorities ordered the PCS Lab Saleme laboratory, located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, to be suspended and new tests to be carried out on the organs that had been examined at that establishment.

The ministry also ordered an “urgent audit (…) of the Rio de Janeiro transplant system.”

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The case was discovered on September 10, when a heart transplant patient who did not have HIV before surgery went to the hospital with neurological symptoms and tested positive for the virus, according to local media.

“It is an unprecedented situation,” said the Rio state Health Secretariat in a note.

The new exams will be carried out by the state hematology network of Rio de Janeiro and will use the “high quality” NAT test produced by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), dependent on the Ministry of Health, Trindade said.

Between 2007 and June 2023, almost half a million Brazilians were infected with HIV, according to the latest bulletin from the Ministry of Health.

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