HIV+ man gave blood 9 times

Comments Closed Posted: June 9th, 2008 ˑ Filled under: News

By Akshaya Kumar Sahoo, Bhubaneswar

June 5: An HIV-positive man, taking advantage of the negligence of blood bank officials in the Bolangir district headquarters hospital, has donated blood at least nine times. It is apprehended that many of the beneficiaries, who received infected blood, might have already contracted the disease.

From Lokmat Times, Nagpur.

This fact came to light after the accused, Sambhu Sahoo, who was recently arrested in connection with his wife Deepanjali’s murder, confessed during interrogation that he had donated blood at least nine times since 2004.

What is surprising that although Sambhu had obtained a HIV-positive certificate from the same district headquarters hospital, the blood bank authorities never suspected him nor did they reportedly conduct any test before blood extraction.

“The accused has confessed to having donated blood at least nine times. We are investigating if Sambhu’s blood has been given to any patient,” district superintendent of police S. Saini said on Thursday. District collector S. Santha Gopalan said stringent action would be taken against the blood bank authorities whose negligence helped Sambhu donate blood.

On May 25, Sambhu, a resident of Tusra village, was taken into custody for allegedly strangulating his wife to death. The HIV-infected man had then told the police that he killed his wife fearing she would be ostracised after his death.

Sambhu confessed before the police that he took his wife Deepanjali to the forest, gave her sleeping pills, strangled her and then slit her wrist. He then tried to kill himself but could not gather enough courage. Sambhu had reportedly wanted to keep his HIV status private. He had applied for the Orissa government’s Rs 200-per-month Madhusudan pension for HIV patients but the officials slipped up and disclosed his name. “We have now issued a circular to all the concerned authorities not to publicly declare the name of HIV-positive patients for the sake of the pension,” chief district medical officer Anant Charan Naik said.