Not so fast

 
Published: Wednesday 15 May 1996

FAULTY AIDS test kits manufactured by the Chicago-based Abbott laboratories Incorporated, have forced thousands of Europeans to face the anxiety of undergoing the test all over again. The company had withdrawn the test kit from the market on March 25, following at least four complaints of the test showing negative results in persons known to carry the AIDS virus.

Roughly 20,000 people in the UK and 50,000 in the Netherlands would have to check themselves again. The British National Health Service had been using the test, IM HIV-one/HIV-two third generation, for the past six months. The health minister of Germany's state of Hessen, Margarethe Nimsch, said that apart from retesting the people, the country's blood donor services would have to examine the blood in the banks, as 650,000 test kits had been sold in the country.

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