Peru government compensates victim of HIV-tainted blood supply

Peru’s health minister handed over a $100,000 compensation check to one of four patients infected last April with HIV during blood transfusions at the Daniel Alcide Carrón National Hospital in the port city of Callao. This is not the first time patients have been infected with HIV at a national hospital in Peru. In 2004, eight people – several of them newborns – contracted the virus during blood transfusions at Lima’s Prenatal Maternity National Institute. According to the Washington-based Pan American Health Organization, up to a quarter of the supply in Peru’s blood banks is not properly screened.