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Tamil Nadu Man Who Donated HIV-Infected Blood to Pregnant Woman Dies After Suicide Attempt

The 19-year-old had been in hospital since 27 December after consuming rat poison.
Reuters/ Representative image

The young man who donated HIV-infected blood which was transfused to a pregnant woman in Tamil Nadu died on Sunday, reported The Times of India.

The 19-year-old had attempted suicide on 27 December by consuming rat poison and was at the Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai.

“He was fine, but as he saw news that his blood was transfused to a pregnant lady, he thought he should not live and consumed rat poison,” the donor’s mother told ANI.

“He died at 8.10 this morning due to bleeding, a known complication of this kind of poison ingestion,” hospital dean Dr Shanmuga Sundaram told The NewsMinute.

On December 3, the pregnant woman had visited the Sattur government hospital for antenatal checks, where she was advised blood transfusion as she was anaemic.

Four days after the procedure, it came to light that the blood transfused was HIV positive and was negligently labelled safe by the hospital’s lab technicians.

The blood had been donated by the teenager and was originally meant to be transfused to his relative. But since it was not used, it was stored in the blood bank.

The woman, who is eight months pregnant with her second child, is due to deliver the baby in January.

Immediately after the issue was brought to the notice of the authorities, three health workers of the blood bank at the government hospital in Sivakasi were suspended for labelling the HIV positive blood as safe.

On further inquiry, it was found the hospital authorities had detected that the donor had HIV as early as 2016, when he donated blood at a camp in Sattur.

But as the teenager was out of town when a counsellor phoned him with the news, he was asked to report to the hospital as early as possible.

On December 27, the donor had attempted suicide by consuming rat poison as his family struggled to deal with the issue.

(With PTI inputs)

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.