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Former Malaria Patients’ Blood Used for Transfusion


By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter

A significant amount of blood supplies from former patients of communicable diseases, such as malaria, have been used for transfusions in hospitals since 2003, a lawmaker said Friday.

The news comes just days after the revelation that HIV-infected blood had been supplied to a local pharmaceutical company as drug material, dealing yet another severe blow to the integrity of Korea’s public health system.

According to a report by Grand National Party (GNP) lawmaker Jeon Jae-hee, who received the data from the National Red Cross of Korea, health officials have gathered donations from 549 people with a history of suffering infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and dysentery. About 1,200 people were provided the tainted blood supplies.

Among the 549 blood donators in question, 38 had suffered malaria in the past, of which the blood of 22 of them were confirmed to have been used in hospitals, according to the report.

The Red Cross survey was based on medical records of 130,000 blood donators between 2003 and June 2005.

None of the reported 549 donators were in an active condition at the time of blood extraction, according to Red Cross officials.

However, health authorities admitted that the donators should have been banned from giving blood, since none of them had completed the waiting period demanded after recovery before donating.

``It’s hard to deny that there had been serious mistakes in the management of blood supplies,’’ a Red Cross official told The Korea Times.

Malaria and tuberculosis patients must wait three years after recovery before they are eligible to donate blood. For other conditions such as dysentery and the mumps, the waiting period is one year, experts said.

Of the aforementioned diseases, only malaria is capable of being transmitted through blood transfusions.

However, health authorities stress that there hasn’t been a malaria patient who contracted the illness through a blood transfusion since 2001.

As for the other donators, 274 people had a history of tuberculosis, 198 of them had had the mumps and seven of them had suffered from dysentery.

Despite the fact that blood drawn from unqualified donors had been channeled and used in hospitals, the Red Cross official claimed that it would be hard to deploy tighter management on blood supplies under the current system.

Local privacy laws have limited the review of personal medical records without the consent of patients and doctors since 2003.

This blocks the Red Cross from accessing the data kept by the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), which manages the records on the outbreak of infectious diseases, before they receive blood from donators.

``Right now, there is no way to review the personal records of blood donators before we distribute their supplies to hospitals. We have to rely simply on their words and the result of the simple checkups we conduct before we draw blood from them,’’ said the Red Cross official.

The official also noted that it is difficult to guard against situations in which a blood donor has no knowledge that he or she is infected with a disease, cases that happen quite frequently.

The Red Cross said it will reduce gathering blood donations from residents living in malaria risk zones and strengthen the interviews on donors conducted before blood extraction.

Local health authorities have been under heavy criticism over the past few days for their loose management of blood supplies.

A report by another GNP lawmaker Monday revealed that a local hospital provided HIV-infected blood to a patient late last year without knowing that the blood was contaminated. The blood was also supplied to a drug company, which used it as drug material. The Ministry of Health and Welfare summoned a special meeting yesterday to discuss the management of blood supplies.
thkim@koreatimes.co.kr

09-09-2005 22:13