HIV-tainted blood from a donor from Missouri was transfused to a Colorado patient who received a kidney donation in 2008, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The agency said it was the first U.S. case in eight years of an HIV transmission through blood transfusion, which happens very rarely. The CDC said the donor did not divulge risky sexual practices before donating blood, and that the infection at that time may have been undetected anyway because it was still an an early stage.
The agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report also found that the blood from the same donor was transfused to a heart patient in Arkansas who died two days after receiving the blood, but it was not proven if that patient also contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The CDC said that health screening of the donor’s blood was HIV-negative because he was tested during a 9-day “eclipse” period, although plasma later showed the HIV virus which infected the patient who received the kidney donation.
