There’s bad news from Sanjay Gandhi Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI), Lucknow. All the 80 pouches of blood recovered by Lucknow Police from a racket busted last week have tested infected, one of them with HIV which causes the deadly Aids, and another with Hepatitis-B. All samples had negligible haemoglobin content.
Worse, the gang has confessed to selling over one lakh units of spurious blood in various parts of Uttar Pradesh (UP), mainly in and around Lucknow, sending alarm bells ringing in the state health department.
When the racket was uncovered and six people arrested, police thought it to be a matter of illegal sale of blood. But the report submitted by SGPGI to the health department on Monday gave a totally new and sinister turn to the case.
“The blood is not fit for humans,” institute director AK Mahapatra said, adding that the state government should hand out the harshest punishment possible to the miscreants who “were playing with people’s lives”.
Director general (health) RR Bharti said the racketeers would be tried under the Gangster Act. He said two drug inspectors had been suspended and notices issued to three private blood banks in Lucknow. All blood banks in UP are being checked thoroughly.
A health department official revealed that all the blood pouches carried labels of well-known private or government hospitals and most labels mentioned wrong blood groups.
“What is most startling is that some of the blood was recycled, which means it was transfused into a patient’s body and taken out after the patient died,” the official said.
