Sacramento Hospitals to Notify Recipients About Tainted Blood

Sacramento-area hospitals prepared Tuesday to notify patients of the possibility that they may have received blood contaminated with the AIDS virus from a large San Francisco blood bank between 1978 and 1985.

The source of such blood, distributed to the hospitals through the Sacramento Blood Center, was the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank, which collected and distributed the 739 units during that seven-year period.

Irwin Memorial informed the Sacramento Blood Center of the possible problem two weeks ago, when four San Francisco hospitals were alerted that about 50,000 patients may have received AIDS-tainted blood.

Director Paul Holland of the Sacramento Blood Center said area hospitals gave the 739 units of San Francisco blood to 348 patients.

The contamination risk was as low as .05% in 1978 to 1% in 1982, so only “one or two” people might have been infected, Holland said.

He said there is only a small chance of actual contamination because the San Francisco blood represented only .1% of the center’s blood supply.

Holland declined to name the 42 Sacramento hospitals in its service area. The largest user was the University of California, Davis, Medical Center, which gave 210 units of Irwin Memorial blood to 91 patients, according to Medical Director Joseph Tuin.

Other area hospitals that received the blood were believed to include Sutter, Kaiser and Mercy hospitals.

Holland said that when Irwin Memorial published its alert, the Sacramento Blood Center had already identified two patients who were exposed to the acquired immune deficiency syndrome virus through San Francisco blood. One died at the time of the transfusion, and the other has developed AIDS, he said.