HIV-positive kidney transplants for HIV-positive individuals: Attitudes and concerns of South African patients and health care workers

Abstract

In South Africa, an estimated 30% of the cadaveric donor pool is HIV-infected; in consequence, these organs are discarded. An under-supply of donor organs combined with limited resources tends to exclude HIV-positive patients from renal replacement programmes. We evaluated the acceptance of using HIV-positive donor kidneys for transplantation into HIV-infected recipients, and found that the vast majority (90% of health care workers and 80% of patients, N = 20 and 80, respectively) found this approach acceptable for expanding the organ donor pool, which indicates broad patient and health care worker support for using HIV-infected donor kidneys.