Risk of HIV infection from former blood donations of donors found to be HIV antibody-positive in blood bank routine testing. "Look-back" study in German Red Cross Blood Banks in the FRG.

Recipients of blood given by 52 repeat blood donors found to be positive by Western blot analysis for anti-HIV from April 1985 to December 1987, among a total of 1.6 million blood donors in the German Red Cross Blood Banks in the FRG, were investigated. Of 149 recipients identified, 76 (51%) had died. Ten recipients refused to be tested. Of those recipients who were tested at least 5 months after transfusion, 46 were HIV antibody negative and 17 were Western blot-positive. In 14 of the HIV antibody-positive recipients, transfusion was given during the period from 1982 to the begin of routine testing in 1985. Three recipients of HIV antibody-negative donations were subsequently identified as HIV positive. The blood had been donated a median of 3 months before HIV antibodies were detected in the donors. From a total of 3 million donations since testing has been introduced, the risk of HIV transmission in tested blood is 1:1 million in our donor population where the HIV antibody prevalence (in Western blot) is about 1 per 100,000 donations/donors.