It is true that medical research has come a long way in understanding the H.I.V. virus and finding ways to manage AIDS. Although individuals are able to live for years with H.I.V. before it might develop into AIDS, there is no doubt that it is still an incredibly dangerous virus.
It is probably safe to assume that receiving a diagnosis of a very serious disease or disorder can be more than stressful. One might lose sleep and become so anxious that it can actually affect their immediate health. Imagine being told that you are H.I.V. positive and then being told a period of time later that it was a mistake. Imagine mistakenly being told that you tested negative for the H.I.V. virus and then continuing to live life without taking precautions to avoid spreading the disease.
This took no feat of imagination for the individuals involved in a recent, possibly medical malpractice mix-up at a military medical center.
Blood samples from active-duty service members and others were recently taken at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. A total of 150 of these samples were sent in a single batch for testing at a contract laboratory. One of these samples came back as H.I.V. positive.
The hospital gave the patient the results, but when confirmatory testing was done, it showed that a mistake had been made. This patient wasn’t H.I.V. positive at all, but who was? That is what the hospital is currently trying to figure out. They have narrowed down the 150-person sample by blood type and through individual contact and retesting, but the H.I.V. positive patient had yet to be found at the time of the report.
The danger mentioned above is real in this case, and it made one professor wonder “How sure are they that this didn’t happen before?”
Source: The New York Times, “H.I.V.-Positive Person, Told Otherwise, Is Being Sought,” Sharon LaFraniere, Jan. 15, 204WebMD, “HIV & AIDS Health Center,” Jan. 17, 2014
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