C’ttee submits report on contaminated blood to KATH

The five-member independent committee set up to investigate the alleged contaminated blood at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital has presented its report to the Chief Executive Officer of the hospital.

The report is expected to be forwarded to the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang Manu.

The committee was set up after reports emerged on social media suggesting that two different blood bags from the hospital’s blood bank were alleged to have tested positive for HIV and Syphilis at a private clinic in Kumasi.

The committee was chaired by a representative from the National Public Health Reference Laboratory, Dr David Opare Agyepong and included reps from the Police Service, the Food and Drugs Authority, and the National AIDS Control Programme.

Chief Executive Officer of the hospital, Dr Oheneba Owusu-Danso said finality will be brought to the matter when the report is made public.

“I must say that we are very grateful by the work executed by the committee. I haven’t seen the contents of the report yet. The management will be presenting the report to the Minister formally, the Minister will study it and I am sure the contents will be made public for information and for operation in the Health sector,” he said.

The two blood bags from the hospital were said to have tested positive for HIV and Syphilis, Adolf Addo Kwabla, whose mother was set to receive the blood had claimed.

He told Citi News his mother had been sick for some months, and the family had sought treatment at a private facility in Kumasi called the Kean Health Center.

Adolf Addo said ahead of one of his mother’s appointments at the health centre, they were asked to bring along some blood.

When the blood was brought on the day of the appointment, “they took the blood and said they were doing tests. We sat waiting and later a lady came and told us the blood we had was contaminated; both of them. One had HIV and other had Syphilis,” Adolf Addo recounted.

Officials at the Health Centre clarified that they conducted a screening test, and not a confirmatory test.

“What we do is a first response test which is a kit and not laboratory equipment. That yielded positive for syphilis and the HIV. It was not a confirmatory test,” the Medical Director at the Private facility, Dr. Kwodwo Eyeson, told Citi News.

“They still have some percentage of false positives. Sometimes 5 to 10 percent. That is why we keep on looking for bigger facilities to confer.”

Source: citinewsroom