AMSTERDAM (PTI): After screening became strict in blood banks, HIV-infected professional blood donors in India have started selling their organs for a living, an Indian doctor told the World AIDS conference here July 23.
Some of them are donating skin, other their kidneys, and one of them even donated an Eye, Dr. I .S. Gilada, Secretary of the Bombay-Based Indian Health Organization told a plenary on “transmission of HIV through blood and blood products.”
Apart from demand for organs from various places in India, there has been a great demand from the middle-east and European countries and “even major private hospitals in Bombay and reputed doctors are involved in the kidney racket,” Gilada said.
Till date there is no law to check trade of human organs, he said. Gilada said his conclusions were based on a detailed interview with 200 professional blood donors who had been selling their blood to a major blood product manufacturer in the city of Pune.
He said 86% of the donors, most of whom had been selling blood for five or six years, were confirmed to be HIV-positive by two different tests.
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 7, 1992
