Blood stores may be tested for A.I.D.S.

Press, 16 May 1985, Page 24

Blood stores may be tested for A.I.D.S.

PA Wellington The Health Department will consider testing blood from previous donors for exposure to the A.I.D.S. virus. The chairman of the Transfusion Advisory Committee, Dr Keith Ridings, said that once the testing of present donors’ blood was “up and running," consideration would be given to whether it was necessary to go back and test from previous blood stores. “It’s a massive task and not something you can do overnight,” Dr Ridings said. Blood banks stored blood from one to five years. Dr Ridings said blood transfusion services did not know what level of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome virus —

the HTLV 3 antibody — to expect from present donors. “If it is high, as in Australia, there is a greater case for going back and testing blood. If it is low, as we hope and suspect, then there is not that degree of urgency to go back. But it is certainly one of the things that will be considered.”

Evaluation of two test kits that detect the A.I.D.S. virus was nearly complete and another test kit would arrive in the country this week.

Dr Ridings said the Health Department hoped to go to tender on the kits in the next few weeks. The kits would be in use within the next few months and would at first be used to test the blood of present donors and in the donor selection method.