Nine people in contact with nurse found to be HIV negative

NINE of the 13 people deemed at risk because of contact with a HIV positive nurse in St Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny, have already tested negative for the virus.

Two other people are awaiting tests and the remaining two have yet to decide whether they wish to undergo the procedure.

It is also believed that fears that the virus might have been transmitted to members of the nurse's family have been discounted.

The chief executive officer of the South Eastern Health Board, Mr John Cooney, has said he is confident all transfusions of potentially HIV contaminated blood in the SEHB area have now been traced.

Addressing the board's monthly meeting yesterday he said that apart from pre 1984 transfusions in Co Wexford - for which records are incomplete - he was satisfied there would be no further cases similar to the cases of the St Luke's nurse and two elderly men, both of whom are thought to have died from natural causes.

People who received transfusions in Wexford before 1984 are asked to ring the health board's three phone lines at 1800 300655.

Mr Cooney said 225 people had used the Helpline since news of the latest blood scare emerged, but this was now tailing off.

The Fine Gael chairman, Mr Phil Hogan TD, praised the SEHB's handling of the matter. But he said it was the latest in an "alarming" number of incidents involving the Blood Transfusion Board. He called on the Minister for Health to take a "long, hard look" at the workings of the board, which needed to "get its act together".

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Cooney was critical of the September letter from the BTSB for making no specific mention of the HIV virus. There was "no urgency" expressed in the letter and, as a result, the health boards were made to look as if they had treated the issue casually.

He said the SEHB had been able to deal with the situation at St Luke's Hospital very quickly because a computer system allowed for an instant print out of where exactly the nurse had been posted on every day she had worked in the hospital.