The Relationship between the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (Draft)

DRAFT
total of 99 units of blood components. At least one donor to each patient was identified who
had AIDS-like symptoms or immunosuppression (Curran et al., 1984). With the identification
of HIV and the development of serologic assays for the virus in 1984, it became possible to
trace infected donors (Samgadharan et al., 1984). The first reports of donor-recipient pairs
appeared later that year (Feorino et al., 1984; Groopman et al., 1984). In one instance, HIV
was isolated from both donor and recipient, and both had developed AIDS (Feorino et al.,
1984); in the other, the recipient was HIV antibody-positive and had developed AIDS, and the
donor had culturable virus in his blood and was in a group considered to be at high risk for
AIDS (Groopman et al., 1984). Genetic mapping from these pairs found that the isolates were
slightly different but much more similar than would be expected by chance alone (Feorino et
al., 1984; Groopman et al., 1984). In a subsequent study of patients with transfusion-acquired
AIDS, 28 of 28 individuals had antibodies to HIV, and each had received blood from an HIVinfected donor (Jaffe et al., 1985b). Similar results were reported from a set of 18 patients
with transfusion-acquired AIDS, each of whom had received blood from an HIV-infected donor
(McDougal et al., 1985b). Fifteen of the 18 donors in this study had low ratios of CD4+/CD8+
T cell ratios, an immune defect seen in pre-AIDS and AIDS patients.
By August 1985, 194 cases of AIDS associated with transfusions of blood or blood
components had been reported in the United States (Peterman et al., 1985). Donor
investigations had been completed in 48 of the cases, and a donor with high-risk behavior had
been identified in 47. Of the donors with high-risk behavior, 40 of the 47 were HIV antibodypositive. Cultures for HIV were positive from six of seven recipients with AIDS and from 23
out of 28 these donors.
In another study, 6 patients with AIDS were shown to have received blood from 25
high risk donors. HIV was isolated from 22 of 25 seropositive blood donors an average of 28
months after the blood donation, and from all 6 recipients an average of 25 months after they
received the blood. Antibodies to HIV were detected in each person at the time the virus was

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