AEGiS-AP: U.S. won't test blood supply for rare AIDS virus

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1990. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

U.S. won't test blood supply for rare AIDS virus

Associated Press - Saturday, November 24, 1990

ATLANTA - A rare form of the AIDS virus could slip into the nation's blood supply, but officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control said Friday that it wasn't worth the cost to try to detect it.

Only 18 known cases of the virus, known as HIV-2, exist in the United States. Tests for the more common AIDS virus, HIV-1, will usually -- but not always -- detect the more rare strain, predominantly found in West Africa.

A CDC study of more than 25,000 blood samples detected no blood donors with HIV-2 infection. It would cost more than $60 million a year to test every blood donor for HIV-2, and the CDC concluded it wasn't worth it.

Dr. Lyle Peterson, an epidemiologist at the Atlanta-based CDC who led the study, said researchers chose 25,000 blood samples from the American Red Cross and New York Blood Center, which provide more than 50 percent of the nation's blood supply.

Currently, blood centers conduct two tests for HIV-1: an enzyme immuniassay (EIA) and Western blot. Positive results from one test mean the blood is not transfused.

Peterson said researchers have discovered that HIV-2 carriers are likely to test positive on the EIA and negative on the Western blot. So the study used only EIA-positive samples. But when these high-risk samples were tested solely for HIV-2, that strain of the virus did not appear.

"These (samples) represent over 12 million donations, so we're pretty confident there isn't any HIV-2" in the blood supply, Peterson said. "Generally, 60 to 90 percent of the time, HIV-2 (carriers) will have a positive HIV-1 test."

The CDC believes that only one HIV-2 carrier has donated blood in the United States. The woman, who was not identified, had traveled to West Africa and donated blood in 1986 before the HIV-2 surveillance project began.

But because her blood tested positive for HIV-1, it was not transfused.

The CDC has biographical information on 15 of the 18 HIV-2 infected people in the United States. All of those either had immigrated from or traveled to West Africa recently or had had sexual contact with West Africans.

Because of the HIV-2 risk, people who have moved to the United States from West Africa since 1977 are excluded from donating blood, and officials routinely question potential donors about their contact with West Africans.
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