After Outrage Over HIV-Infected Blood Transfer, Tamil Nadu To Use Biometric Scanners To Verify Donor Credentials

In the aftermath of outrage after the case of a women getting infected by HIV due to transfusion of a compromised blood sample, Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TANSACS) plans to incorporate biometric scanners to verify donor credentials, reports The New Indian Express.

Last month, a 19-year-old man’s blood was wrongly labelled as HIV negative by a Sivakasi government blood bank, and transfused to a 23-year-old pregnant woman, infecting her with HIV as well. The incident caused widespread outrage in Tamil Nadu as well as the rest of the country.

In the future, blood donors in the state would be able to record biometric details to address the problems caused due to fake credentials. Also, timely medical care could be provided if any sample tests HIV positive.

The proposal aims at providing timely initiation of antiretroviral therapy for HIV positive donors during the screening process after donation at banks.

An estimated 23 blood-donors tested HIV positive between 2015 and 2018 but could not be informed about their results due to several reasons. Dr K Senthil Raj, Project Director, TANSACS, said that out of the 23 donors, some of them did not cooperate while others provided fake identities and false contact details.

"We are going to propose to the government to have a programme to capture the biometrics of blood donors. In such cases, biometrics will help identify and bring them into the system by doing a test to confirm the presence of the virus through informed consent," he added.