"Well, the good news is your new kidney works fine ... "
4 patients test HIV+ from transplanted organs
Spread of AIDS Virus to Transplant Patients Signals Need for More Information on Donors
A troubling case in which a high-risk organ donor infected four patients with the AIDS virus and hepatitis has led medical ethicists to warn that patients need to know more about whose organs they're getting.
Public health officials said Tuesday the Chicago case is the first known instance of HIV transmission through organ transplants since 1986.
It's also the first ever known instance in which one organ donor has spread hepatitis C and HIV at the same time, said Dr. Matt Kuehnert of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention....
Initial tests on the donor for HIV, hepatitis and other conditions came back negative, most likely because the donor had acquired the infections in the last three weeks before death.
It takes 22 days from the time of exposure to HIV for antibodies to be picked up in the standard HIV test. During that time, a person can still be infectious.
Because of that lag, there's growing support for a newer costlier test that can detect the virus earlier but takes several hours longer to get results.
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