
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 29, 1990                   TAG: 9006290736
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.                                LENGTH: Short

PATIENT INJECTED WITH AIDS BLOOD

A veterans' hospital mistakenly injected the blood of an AIDS victim into another patient in the same ward who had the same surname.

"This is an absolute tragedy. We are devastated by this," said Dr. Darwin Palmer, chief of infectious diseases at the Veterans Administration Medical Center.

The error was discovered less than an hour after the patient, who is seriously ill with an undisclosed ailment, was injected Wednesday, Palmer said.

"If this patient, who is very ill, lives long enough, he will unfortunately have a good chance of developing the AIDS virus infection," Palmer said.

The hospital immediately notified the patient about the error and offered him high-dose antiviral therapy, including the drug AZT - "the best therapy we have" - in an effort to stave off any infection, Palmer said.

The patients, both men, had recently undergone a rare blood test within 24 hours of each other, Palmer said. The hospital said it could not release their identities or say what the wrongly injected man had been receiving treatment for.

by CNB