HIV-infected man jailed for giving false info on sexual activities during blood donation
UPDATE: Story updated with HSA statement that none of the donated blood by the man was transfused to patients.
CORRECTION: A previous edition of the story incorrectly stated that the man was sentenced to four weeks’ jail and a fine of $10,000. This story has been corrected to show that he was jailed four months and fined $10,000.
SINGAPORE — Before donating his blood, a man declared in a questionnaire that he had not had sex with other males nor with anyone that he had known for less than six months in past year.
However the 35-year-old’s blood was later found to be infected with HIV.
The quantity surveyor was sentenced to four months’ jail on Wednesday (2 October), and a fine of $10,000. As the man did not pay the fine, he will have to serve an additional month’s jail.
The man, who cannot be named due to a court-imposed gag order, pleaded guilty to one count of providing false information before donating blood to the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) blood bank on 30 September 2017.
It was the sixth time he was donating blood.
Lied in health assessment questionnaire
On 30 September 2017, the man had gone to a HSA blood donation drive at Tzu Chi Foundation Jin Si Hall at 9 Elias Road. Before his blood was retrieved, he was required to complete a Donor Health Assessment Questionnaire.
One of the questions asked, “Male Donor: Have you ever engaged in sexual activity with another male?”, while another asked, “In the last 12 months, have you… engaged in sexual activity with anyone whom you have known for less than six months?”
The man answered “no” to both questions and declared that his answers were true. After finishing the questionnaire, he was interviewed by a medical screener and told he would be prosecuted for an offence if any of his answers to the questions were false or misleading.
The man did not make any amendments. While the questionnaire provided a hotline to contact HSA’s blood bank if a person felt his/her blood should not be transfused to another person, the man did not call the hotline.
A HSA spokesperson said, “The donor’s blood was tested negative for HIV in his last five donations. HSA’s laboratory detected HIV in the donor’s donated blood on his sixth donation on 30 September 2017. The donated blood was immediately isolated and destroyed. None of the donated blood was transfused to patients.”
Sexual encounters with strangers
After the discovery that the man’s blood was infected with HIV, HSA’s Blood Services Group interviewed the man to ascertain if he had any HIV risk factors. He claimed to not have had sex before and insisted that he had not participated in any risk activities.
He was interviewed by a Public Health Officer on 27 October, when he admitted to having sex with an unknown male foreign worker that he met in June 2017. He also admitted to having sexual encounters with strangers in the Philippines.
When he was further interviewed by a Ministry of Health (MOH) officer on 4 August last year, he admitted to also having sex with an unknown Indian or Bangladeshi man in mid-2017. He had met the man at a Woodlands MRT station toilet and the pair had sex at a toilet cubicle in Causeway Point Shopping Centre.
The man also had sex with two men in the Philippines before working in Singapore in 2014.
False info could compromise public safety
Urging the court to jail the man for four months and fine him $10,000, MOH said in court documents that false information given in blood donations could compromise public health and safety.
"In particular, if the donated blood is infected with HIV, there is risk that the disease may be transmitted through blood transfusions to innocent recipients,” the court documents said.
Having donated his blood five times before, the man should have been aware of the warnings and the reminders in the questionnaire, it added.
For his offence, the man could have been jailed up to two years and/or fined up to $20,000.
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