TO DATE 119,634 persons have been tested for the HIV virus, of whom 1,731 were positive. Those positive for AIDS as of December 31st last numbered 577, of whom 304 had died, the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, said in a written reply.

A look-back programme introduced following the discovery last December that a junior doctor who worked in the surgical department of Letterkenny General Hospital was HIV-positive had so far yielded nobody who tested positive for the virus. The doctor was no longer in the health service.

The source of the HIV infection of a healthcare worker in the South Eastern Health Board was confirmed to have been a contaminated blood transfusion which she received in 1985, before the introduction of routine HIV screening of blood donations. The person had not been at work since the diagnosis was confirmed.