For the past week, arrests and controversies have increased in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, where six people received organ transplants infected with HIV, the AIDS virus. Since the revelation of the affair on Friday October 11, an investigation has been opened and four suspects have already been arrested. The authorities point the finger at a small private laboratory which would have voluntarily reduced its controls to increase its profits.
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It was the result of a series of errors and the pursuit of profit at the expense of patients, according to police. The private laboratory in Saleme, located in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, is under contract with the public health system of the city of Rio. This contract of eleven million reais, or two million euros, was signed to carry out pre-transplant serological tests, reports our correspondent in Rio de Janeiro, Sarah Cozzolino.
Police point to flaws in quality control of virus test reagent AIDS. The check, which normally has to be carried out daily, was deliberately reduced to a weekly check in order to save money.
There are also inconsistencies between the signatures present on the examination results, stamped with the registration number of other doctors.
A tragic first in Brazil
The six recipients were infected by two donors: it involved the transplantation of a heart and two kidneys for the first donor, and a liver and two kidneys for the second.
This is the first time that an error of this type has occurred in Brazil. The authorities ordered the suspension of the PCS Lab Saleme laboratory and the city of Rio created an emergency center specializing in monitoring transplants. The 288 donors who had carried out their screening tests in the laboratory between December 2023 and September 2024 will be tested again.
The ministry also ordered a “ urgent audit (…) of the transplant system in Rio de Janeiro “. The case was discovered on September 10, when a heart transplant patient, who was not HIV positive before the operation, presented to the hospital with neurological symptoms and tested positive for the virus, according to local media.
Two other patients received cornea donations from HIV-positive donors, but were not infected with HIV, according to local media.
Shareholders close to a Rio state official
The laboratory is accused of issuing false negative reports on HIV, which resulted in the contamination of six transplant patients in the state. Police suspect the group of falsifying reports in other cases.
The scandal also smacks of nepotism, according to information from the Brazilian daily Folha de São Paulo. One of the shareholders of the laboratory in question is the cousin of Dr Luizinho, who was regional advisor in charge of Health from January to September 2023. Another shareholder is married to the aunt of this same political leader, today now a deputy in Brasilia.
According to the daily, the laboratory had already been accused of the same facts in the past.
Between 2007 and June 2023, almost half a million Brazilians were infected with HIV, according to the latest bulletin from the Ministry of Health.