Vietnamese man lives 19 years
HIV-positive due to false test results
Tran Ngoc Khanh and the
test results indicating that he is HIV-negative.
A man in the south-central
province of Binh Thuan was surprised to find himself alive and kicking 19
years after being diagnosed with HIV, so he retook the test to prove himself
negative.
Tran
Ngoc Khanh, 65, tested HIV-positive in 1997, when his province ran a program
to screen residents at high risk of being infected with the virus.
HIV
infection is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which weakens people’s defense
systems against infections, the most advanced stage of which is Acquired
Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) defined by the development of certain
cancers, infections, or other severe clinical manifestations, according to
the World Health Organization (WHO).
Khanh
said medical workers of Binh Thuan Province and Vinh Hao Commune, where he
lived, had come to his door in July 1997 and asked for a blood sample for the
test, which he assumed was due to his history of drug addiction.
Nineteen years of discrimination
When
the results returned positive, Khanh said he experienced a mental breakdown
and could not eat for days.
“Back
in those days, AIDS was frowned upon by the community and viewed as something
extremely terrible. People began looking at me differently,” Khanh recalled.
Khanh
said his family stopped eating at the same table as him since they knew about
his condition, while his children also avoided using the only bathroom in the
house.
“I
didn’t dare to get intimate with him anymore after hearing about the news, as
it makes me cringe whenever I think about HIV,” Khanh’s wife Le Thi Anh said.
“He
denied having been engaged in any other relationship when I raised the
question. They say HIV patients get worn down very quickly, but he has looked
healthy all along,” Anh recalled.
Khanh’s
firstborn said he had experienced distress, shame, and an inferiority complex
after hearing about his father’s condition.
“Nobody
said a word though we were all heavyhearted. We had to refrain from doing
activities together to protect each other,” his son confessed.
Once
every month, a medical worker would visit Khanh to check on his ‘medical
condition’, even advising him to take medications to treat his ‘illness’,
which Khanh refused, saying he felt completely healthy.
“They
would ask me every time whether I was experiencing diarrhea or any other
symptom, but my answer was always no,” Khanh recalled.
His
neighbors did not believe Khanh’s words, however, as he said they had told
each other about how “HIV and AIDS kill people slowly, not immediately” to
explain Khanh’s good health.
“My
husband and I were too busy making ends meet to think about retaking the
test,” Anh said. “Our business was also affected, since customers were
reluctant to come near an HIV patient.”
Khanh
had worked as a postman and run a small grocery store at home before opening
a lottery agency following the diagnosis, but business has been tough.
“Nobody
wants to touch the dish that I have had my chopsticks on at parties. Some
blamed me for hiding my illness all along. I have been living in shame for
all those years,” Khanh confessed.
On
a sleepless night last month, Khanh could not wrap his head around how he had
been able to survive for 19 years in perfectly good health with HIV, and
finally decided to catch the first bus to Ho Chi Minh City the next morning
to settle the disturbance once and for all.
Escaping the ‘death penalty’
Three
separate lab tests at three different major hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City in
four days from May 16 to 19 all indicated that Khanh was HIV-negative, which
came as a huge relief for the man, who described his feeling at the time as
if he had just escaped the ‘death penalty’ and had been reborn to a whole new
life.
Khanh
then came to the HIV/AIDS Prevention Center of Binh Thuan Province, where he
had been tested HIV-positive 19 years ago, and asked to be retested.
“If
the center had falsely tested me with HIV infection, then it’s their
responsibility to correct their mistake,” Khanh explained his decision.
Test
results at the center were returned on Monday, which also indicated that
Khanh was negative.
Nguyen
Thi Thanh Loan, acting head of the Medical Clinic of Vinh Hao Commune, said
she had instructed Khanh to inform the district medical clinic and the
provincial HIV Prevention Center to remove his name from the list of HIV
patients under monitor.
“Khanh
has been under our supervision for a long time, and has appeared to be in
good health” Loan said. “It is still not clear whether the positive result
was a mistake or that he was cured by taking medication.”
Speaking
with Tuoi Tre (Youth)
newspaper, Director of the Binh Thuan Province Health Department Nguyen Quoc
Viet said that if new test results show that Khanh is indeed negative with
HIV, then relevant authorities must announce the news publicly in his
neighborhood.
According
to lawyer Phan Minh, a member of the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, Khanh
can file a lawsuit demanding compensation for the false test result.
“In
the case of Tran Ngoc Khanh, after determining that the test result was
false, authorities must announce the news in public in his neighborhood,
apologize, and compensate him for the spiritual and material loss that he has
suffered. In addition, Khanh can file a lawsuit demanding compensation for
the 19 years of mental damage that he has suffered due to the mistake,” Minh
explained.
Meanwhile,
Director of the HIV/AIDS Prevention Center of Binh Thuan Province Pham Thanh
Thanh said there were cases when the body of an HIV patient had cured itself
of the disease thanks to improved immunity, which he said was extremely rare
and was still inexplicable.
Some
patients, Thanh said, had a mutated gene that could fight off causative
agents of a number of different diseases, including HIV-related ones.
Commenting
on the probability of a test returning false results, Thanh said each test
sample had to go through a protocol dictated by the health ministry, so the
chance of a mistake occurring is extremely small.
Earlier
this year, a man in north-central Vietnam filed a case demanding over VND773 million
(US$35,000) in compensation from a local medical center for mistakenly
diagnosing him with HIV over ten years ago.
TUOI TRE
NEWS
|
Thứ Tư, 1 tháng 6, 2016
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