Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Monday, November 18, 2002
The Jacques Cartier clinic in Massy, in the south Paris suburbs, said it had written to 926 former patients offering them tests, after finding that the 74-year-old man, who died of cardiovascular problems after routine heart surgery, was HIV positive.
It said 15 patients had reported back to the clinic for tests.
An inquiry has been opened into the death of the man, who was found to be infected with the virus three months after his operation in October 2001.
A routine HIV test three days before the operation had been negative.
A clinic official said, however, that any risk to past patients should be "extremely limited."
The clinic said in a statement that the inquiry, being carried out in collaboration with the health authorities, had ruled out the possibility of contamination from a blood transfusion.
It also said that no incident causing exposure to the medic's own blood had been reported during the heart bypass and valve replacement operation -- meaning that no direct link had been established between him and the patient's infection.
"At this point in the inquiry, a link between the two cases has not been formally established," the statement said.
A spokesman for the clinic said the medic was one of 10 to 15 people involved in the operation, but would not name him or say whether he was a doctor, nurse, surgeon or anesthetist. The medic was found to be HIV positive after a random HIV test of the entire medical team.
In France there is no obligatory screening of doctors or patients for AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome).
"It's about individual responsibility," the spokesman said.
France's biggest AIDS scandal to date was in 1985 when it emerged that hundreds of people had died after being given transfusions of blood tainted with AIDS.
In Switzerland, a former doctor who failed to tell a patient he was infected with HIV (human immuno-deficiency virus) was last week handed a suspended seven-month jail sentence by a court which found him guilty of having shirked his duty.
The cumulative total of cases of AIDS, which destroys the body's ability to fight infections and certain cancers, has reached 235,000 in the European Union since the illness was first recognized in 1981.
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