ONLY 14 out of 45 hospitals have so far responded to requests from the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) to trace recipients of blood infected with the HIV virus.
Following revelations that a health worker in the south-east has become the first person to contract HIV through a routine blood transfusion, the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, yesterday told the Dail that the BTSB had now "intensified its efforts" to work with hospitals in identifying those patients who received the suspect products.
The BTSB takes the view 1981 was probably the earliest date of infection by HIV of blood in Ireland. Screening tests were not available until 1985 and came into effect in October of that year. All blood donations found to be positive by the BTSB were subsequently discarded, Mr Noonan said.
From October 1985 to the present, 24 donors have been diagnosed as HIV positive. Since eight of these were "first-time donors", no risk of HIV transmission to recipients was involved, he said.
In the case of nine of the 16 "repeat donors", recipients of products regarded as being at risk were traced. None of the recipients tested positive.
However, a problem arose in relation to tracing recipients of products derived from the blood of the remaining seven donors. According to the Minister dispatch records in the BTSB in Pelican House are not available for the period before 1986.
The BTSB has told Mr Noonan there were 31 possibly infected "issues" (doses) prepared from these seven donors. Of these 31, 15 were donated prior to 1980 and are not regarded as a potential source of infection.
The health worker identified at the weekend in St Luke's General Hospital, in Kilkenny city received one of the other 16 issues. As a result, the BTSB had concluded that concern now arose in relation to a maximum of 15 recipients.
Mr Noonan told the Dail the BTSB had addressed the issue through a "scientific committee" in May 1996. Legal advice with regard to the board's "duty of care" was obtained in August, and 45 hospitals were then contacted with details of the numbers of the "blood batches which were regarded as potentially infective.
"Since then I understand that 14 hospitals have responded and chat three of the batches have been identified. All of these three related to donations prior to 1980 and therefore did not pose a threat".
The BTSB said yesterday that, at most, it anticipated finding "three or four" of the people still alive who received the potentially infected issues.
The others are expected to have died in the meantime from their underlying illnesses.
"We are involved in a belt-and-braces exercise and are checking all the components," said Mr Liam Dunbar, chief executive of the BTSB.