It was a patient who was not ill before his transplant who raised the alarm. The man began to show signs of being HIV positive. Six organ transplant patients have tested positive for the AIDS virus in Rio de Janeiro state, a “serious” case that authorities are investigating, Brazil’s Health Ministry said Friday.
Tests carried out on two donors by a private laboratory contracted by the Rio de Janeiro health system came back positive for the virus after initially being declared negative.
“So far we have received confirmation that two donors tested positive for HIV and six recipients also tested positive,” Health Minister Nisia Trindade said in a statement, describing a “situation severe “.
Half a million Brazilians infected in nearly 20 years
Authorities ordered the suspension of the PCS Lab Saleme laboratory, located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, and the carrying out of new tests on the organs that had been tested there. The ministry also ordered an “urgent audit (…) of the transplant system in Rio de Janeiro”.
The case was discovered on September 10, when a heart transplant patient, who was not HIV positive before the operation, presented to the hospital with neurological symptoms and tested positive for the virus, according to local media.
Between 2007 and June 2023, almost half a million Brazilians were infected with HIV, according to the latest bulletin from the Ministry of Health.
