Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - Thursday, October 08, 1998
Sanitation Inspection Center officials say the blood tested positive for HIV in May, but for some reason it was not discarded and ended up in the hospital's blood bank, where it was used to treat children suffering from leukemia.
A report by the center says at least three children were infected during the transfusion, and hospital staff tried to keep the incident quiet in a coverup operation.
Russian media reports say preliminary finding show gross negligence rather than criminal intent on the part of the clinic's staff.
The Health Ministry has begun an investigation and prosecutors are now considering criminal proceedings.
Cases of AIDS contamination in Russian hospitals are rare, with Russian medical facilities considered relatively safe in the past.
Hospitals have imposed stiff checks on blood banks after a widely reported case four years ago when over 30 children were infected with the AIDS virus in Kalmykia (``kahl-MYH-kee-ah''), an autonomous republic on the Caspian Sea.
The Kalmykia case involved dirty needles, which were tainted with HIV, being used in an inoculation program.
The publicity around the Kalmykia incident, which resulted in most of the children dying of AIDS in the largest case of multiple infections in Russia, attracted so much attention that Health Ministry officials spared no expense buying the latest equipment to screen blood banks and enforce strict procedures.
But a financial crunch in the last year has seen funding for AIDS programs dry up, and independent surveys show the number of HIV cases has shot up 400 percent in the past two years.
The vast majority of Russia's AIDS cases are drug users who shared needles.
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