A 24-year-old woman, who contracted HIV at a Government hospital allegedly after being transfused contaminated blood, has given birth to a baby girl here.
The woman had a normal delivery on Thursday, Government Rajaji Hospital dean Dr S Shanmughasundaram told PTI, adding that the baby weighed 1.75 kg.
"C-section would have facilitated lesser contact with the mother's blood. But the mother developed labour pain and the delivery happened quickly," he said.
The low birth weight baby is being treated in the hospital's neo-natal intensive care unit and has been administered medicines for prevention of HIV transmission, the dean said.
A healthy baby weighs between 2.5 kg and 3.5 kg at birth.
HIV screening would be conducted on the 45th day to ascertain whether the child has been infected by the virus, he added.
Last month, the pregnant woman contracted HIV at a Government hospital in Sattur in Virudhunagar district allegedly after being transfused contaminated blood supplied by a blood bank.
Following this, the state government ordered examination of stocks in the State's blood banks.
It was later found that a 19-year old blood donor's infected blood was transfused to the woman. On learning that she had contracted the virus, he consumed rat poison and died on December 30.
Services of three lab technicians of the blood bank attached to the Government hospital was terminated.
