8 March 2004
The province's health department has appealed for calm over news reports that 14 children apparently contracted HIV in hospitals, saying the risk is small and that hospital standards remain high in spite of constraints.
"We're talking about a possible 14 cases in the past six years," said Dr Fareed Abdullah, head of Aids in the Western Cape, who went on to make the point that each case was being taken "extremely seriously".
The controversy erupted last week after an article in the latest edition of the SA Medical Journal pointed to 14 children having contracted the virus although their mothers were HIV-negative.
Most paediatric HIV cases are the result of birth transmission from HIV-positive mothers, or via breastfeeding from an infected woman.
Twelve of the children in the study who contracted HIV were treated at eight Western Cape hospitals, including Tygerberg and Red Cross Children's Hospital. Four have already died.
The other two children were treated in private hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
Parents of one of the children are reportedly taking legal action against the health department. Reports said the action had beenstarted several years ago.
David Bass, the department's legal adviser, has been quoted as saying that the department had traced the child's medical treatment, and had not found any obvious source of HIV infection.
The parents would have to show their child contracted HIV as a result of hospital negligence.
Abdullah said there was no reason for people to get worried about sending their children to hospitals.
In the past two years authorities had instituted special precautions to combat the possibility of HIV infection in hospitals, including stopping mothers sharing breast pumps, focusing on sterilisation of equipment and ensuring that milk from HIV-positive mothers in the neonatal wards was pasteurised.
The finding emerged from Tygerberg's collection of data on unexplained HIV transmission in children.
Tygerberg paediatrician Dr Mark Cotton predicted the 14 were "the tip of the iceberg", and called last week for an urgent investigation.
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