WorldFailure

Refugees died after HIV misdiagnosis

8 August 2009
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/21176/20090808/

According to a study done by Karolinska University Hospital, several female refugees from Africa have died of AIDS after Swedish doctors failed to test them for HIV, reports Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

Of the 82 patients in Sweden who were newly diagnosed with HIV in 2007, 34 of them had several depressed immune systems and the majority of them had already developed AIDS. The study showed that more than a third of them had sought medical treatment previously for AIDS-related diseases, but the doctors had not tested them for HIV.

Seventeen of the cases discovered late were African women who had been infected through heterosexual contact, said senior physician, Victoria Svedhem Johansson, who is responsible for the study.

Four of the 34 patients who received a late-stage diagnosis died within a year. This should be compared with the mortality rate of all AIDS patients in Sweden, which was 1 percent in 2007.

Elisabeth Wall Bennet, head of the supervision department at the Swedish Board of Health and Welfare, said that it is unacceptable that the HIV diagnosis was given at such a late stage.

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