Blood screening

HIV infections as a result of blood transfusions were first noted in 1982, but it isn’t until 1985, when the ELISA test is approved, that blood banks around the world - from the USA to Rwanda - begin the process of screening all blood available in blood banks for HIV. In some resource-rich countries, including Germany, Switzerland and Japan, blood screening is implemented late or inconsistently into the late 1980s, resulting in a number of lawsuits that force governments to pay compensation for HIV infections resulting from that time.