Man sues blood service after allegedly contracting terminal disease
The SA National Blood Transfusion Service says it's devastated that a patient appears to have contracted a terminal disease after undergoing a blood transfusion.
The service has been reacting to a case in which a Durban man is suing the transfusion service for a reported R24-million.
The allegation is that the body acted negligently by not testing the blood for HTLV-1 or human T-cell leukaemia.
The service's Jackie Thomson says the virus has a low prevalence within the country's donor populations.
"Most people don't really test for this viral infection. The reason is because it's quite difficult to perform the test and it's not 100% accurate in all cases. So you might end up with false positive results," she says.
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She says less than one in a thousand cases were picked up when 50 000 blood donations were tested.
"Even if you do contract this virus, 98% of patients never get sick from it. Worldwide, there's a debate surrounding this particular virus among blood transfusion services, if they should test or shouldn't test for it," she says.
Thomson says it does all in its power to ensure products are as safe as possible. A trial date has not yet been set.
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