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Chinese hospital infects five with HIV by reusing equipment

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B

Blablurn

Member
A Chinese hospital has admitted accidentally infecting five people with HIV because a staff member reused medical equipment that should have been discarded.

Officials said that a technician reused a tube used to treat an individual with HIV on other patients.

Provincial authorities described it as a "severe violation of procedure".

Five people had been sacked at Hangzhou's Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, they said.

Provincial health officials said they were informed of the situation on 26 January.
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But in a statement (in Chinese) they gave no information on how many other patients might have been exposed, what they were being treated for or when the infections occurred.

Those affected would receive treatment and compensation, the brief statement said.

Two decades ago low safety standards and insufficient regulation helped spread HIV/Aids in China, and the news of the hospital incident sparked shock and criticism from social media users.

"A provincial-level hospital doesn't follow protocols, who can we trust as average citizens?!", wrote one person on Weibo, China's version of Twitter.

"This case is exposed, but what about cases that we don't know? There must have been many more!" wrote another.
Blood-selling

Cases of HIV/Aids rose sharply in China after a major scandal in Henan province in the 1990s, when farmers who sold their blood contracted HIV through poor safety practices.

Donors' collected blood was pooled together and the lucrative plasma removed. The remaining blood, now cross-contaminated, was then injected back into the donors so they could donate again soon.

For years officials tried to cover up the problem and it is still not clear how many were infected. China said in 2001 that between 30,000 and 50,000 people had contracted HIV through the blood-selling scandal, but other officials have since suggested the figure was much higher.

The scandal did help highlight the ways in which HIV could be passed, and rules surrounding blood donation and transfusions have since improved, but illegal practises remain.

In 2006, a group of 19 people sued a hospital in Heilongjiang over transfusions from which they contracted HIV.

In a recent report, China said it had 501,000 reported cases of HIV/Aids by the end of 2014. It gave no estimate of unreported cases.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-38920454
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Fuck!
 
H

hipbabboom

Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
That's is pretty sad news :(. How well-equipped is China to maintain the lifestyles of people with HIV given how expensive it is in the west? From little I've heard so far, HIV patients lose their freedom to get married and have kids right?
 
H

How About No

Member
Holy fuck. I mean, how do you even react when you're told a hospital was a dumb-dumb and you now have a horrible disease for the rest of your life?
 
J

Jedi2016

Member
Donors' collected blood was pooled together and the lucrative plasma removed. The remaining blood, now cross-contaminated, was then injected back into the donors so they could donate again soon.
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What. The. Fuck.
 
Z

zeemumu

Member
Jedi2016 said:
What. The. Fuck.
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So, let me get this straight. They took the blood, dumped it all into a single vat, removed the plasma, then just dumped it back into the people? Contamination protocol aside, were the vats at least sorted by blood type?
 
Joei

Joei

Member
zeemumu said:
So, let me get this straight. They took the blood, dumped it all into a single vat, removed the plasma, then just dumped it back into the people? Contamination protocol aside, were the vats at least sorted by blood type?
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That's what I'm thinking as well. This is, like, backwards 1800's type medicine if they're thinking, "naw, naw, it's all good, it's all the same stuff..."
 
R

rockinreelin

Member
How strange to get infected by hospital equipment. HIV has a very short lifespan once it is exposed to air. They must have happened from some sort of blood/kidney dialysis machine that kept the fluids from being exposed via some compartment/tubing that housed blood/plasma. That or needles.
 
D

Dylan

Member
It is really terrible, but we shouldn't think we are immune (really really sorry) to this kind of thing in the West.

It has happened in Canada.


In the early 1980s, about 2,000 Canadians were infected with HIV from tainted blood products. Many thousand more, perhaps as many as 30,000, were infected with hepatitis C. And so 20 years ago today, the Privy Council issued an order calling for the creation of a Royal Commission of Inquiry on the Blood System in Canada — better known as the Krever Inquiry.
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There was also a more recent Hepatitis infection quagmire in Canada but I can't seem to find the news story. It was about a decade ago.
 
S

Syncytia

Member
Dylan said:
It is really terrible, but we shouldn't think we are immune (really really sorry) to this kind of thing in the West.

It has happened in Canada.





There was also a more recent Hepatitis infection quagmire in Canada but I can't seem to find the news story. It was about a decade ago.
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Before like the 90s screening for blood borne viruses was not really a thing. Especially before the 80s when HIV was identified it wasn't a thing. Accidental/unknown HIV and Hepatitis C transmission changed a lot of things with blood donation.
 
S

Shoeless

Member
I know that there's a certain element of thriftiness in Chinese culture, but sometimes it really isn't worth the savings when stuff like this happens.
 
K

Kieli

Member
Derwind said:
Absolute incompetence, those physicians should be arrested for this.



Damn, I hope that wasn't an intentional pun.
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Gaffers punned in threads where some people died from a car crash and other similar situations. I expect better, but ain't happening here with the need to get that first post.
 
D

Dylan

Member
Syncytia said:
Before like the 90s screening for blood borne viruses was not really a thing. Especially before the 80s when HIV was identified it wasn't a thing. Accidental/unknown HIV and Hepatitis C transmission changed a lot of things with blood donation.
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I'm not defending it, I'm just saying malpractice and gross ignorance knows no borders.
 
V

Vilix

Unconfirmed Member
At least they have universal healthcare to treat it.
 
H

How About No

Member
Dylan said:
It is really terrible, but we shouldn't think we are immune (really really sorry) to this kind of thing in the West.

It has happened in Canada.





There was also a more recent Hepatitis infection quagmire in Canada but I can't seem to find the news story. It was about a decade ago.
Click to expand...

Oh ya we had a scare at a Veteran's Hospital pretty close to me, incompetence knows no borders. Because a dentist couldn't be bothered to properly clean his equipment. This was just last December.

Thankfully, none of the almost 600 vets were confirmed positive
 
Z

Zelenogorsk

Banned
When I was a kid I had a book of scary stories and one was about a kid who goes into the hospital to get his tonsils removed but he's mixed up with another patient and he wakes up from surgery with his legs removed. It messed up kid me pretty bad.

I don't know how the Chinese legal system works but this sounds like it has the makings of one heck of lawsuit.
 
M

massoluk

Banned
Extremely scary, so many infected people having no idea they could expose HIV to others and for no fault of their own
 
D

Dr.Sanchez

Neo Member
Damn that's awful. I'd be devastated if that were to happen to me. That didn't have to happen, but all it takes is a bit of incompetence and lack of care.
 
R

rec0ded1

Member
Terrifying story. Fuck.

MrOogieBoogie said:
That is positively terrible.
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caMnxf9.gif
 
C

Chichikov

Member
That thing is reported all over Chinese news, they'll probably throw the book at everyone involved. If this was a result of cutting corners to save money, my guess is that we'll see some suspended death sentences (which generally mean life in prison).
 
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