Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1985. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Miami Herald - Thursday, August 22, 1985
Sandra Dibble, Herald Staff Writer
"We're suggesting that if you're interested, you should take the test," said Dan Richmond, AIDS program manager for the Dade Health Department.
The South Florida Blood Service, which serves 59 hospitals and dialysis centers in Dade, Broward and Monroe counties, credits heightened public interest in the disease to increased media attention.
"People ask, 'My grandmother is going into the hospital for surgery. Is she going to get AIDS?' " said Tom Donia, spokesman for the blood service. "We've had people walk off the street and ask to be tested."
Dr. Charles Rouault, director of the Broward Community Blood Center, which serves 17 hospitals, said a dentist and a nurse who frequently donate blood have called his office this week to voice concerns.
"People see all the stories in the newspapers and panic," Rouault said. "But the blood is not bad. We make absolutely certain of that."
The recently revealed account of a 40-year-old Saudi Arabian heterosexual who died after receiving AIDS-tainted blood from Miami has fueled the fears.
Health officials say the odds of getting AIDS through a blood transfusion are small -- practically zero if the transfusion took place after April 1.
"Anyone that has been transfused since April 1 has been getting the safest possible blood," Donia said.
Since mid-March, the blood service has been testing all the blood it receives for the presence of the antibody to the AIDS virus. The test is called the HTLV-III, or Elisa test.
Donia said samples that test positively are submitted to a second test, the Western Bloc.
If the first test is positive, the blood is not used for transfusions, he said.
If the second test is positive, "then we inform the donor," Donia said.
Gus Sermos, Florida's AIDS surveillance officer for the federal Centers for Disease Control, said the Elisa test has been found 99.8 percent effective in detecting the AIDS antibody.
Of 871 AIDS cases diagnosed in Florida since 1980, Sermos said only 10 were caused by blood transfusions.
Six of those cases were detected in Dade, Sermos said. Five were traced to blood provided through the South Florida Blood Service, and one case was traced to the Broward Community Blood Center. None of the cases have been traced to Palm Beach.
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