Screening
We carry out infectious screening of patients at Sims Fertility Clinic in order to minimise the risk of infectious contamination between patients and in accordance with EU and Irish Tissue and Cells legislation. This is particularly the case where embryos are frozen, that are surplus to the needs of the couples during a fresh treatment cycle and are frozen for subsequent use. Although there has never been to our knowledge any case of cross contamination between frozen embryos of one couple to the frozen embryos of another within a storage container, this is possible. Indeed, there has been at least one documented case where a bone marrow sample frozen from one couple did contaminate other frozen bone marrow samples in the same storage device.
The overall consequence is that although this would be a very rare event, it can occur. Therefore, we routinely screen patients for common infectious diseases which include, Hepatitis B Surface Antigen, Hepatitis B Core Antibody, Hepatitis C and HIV 1&2. It should be borne in mind this screening does not allow for a quarantine period and therefore if you, for example are exposed to the HIV virus today, it can take up to six months for the blood test to become positive. Therefore, even patients (including yourself) who are screened for HIV and are screened negative today could indeed have contracted the virus. However, it is not possible to take account for this unless egg embryos and sperm are frozen and held for six months before treatment commences which is not practicable for the vast majority of treatments or suitable for the vast majority of couples. Therefore we do what we feel is reasonably possible to minimise the risk of cross contamination by testing patients on different occasions. However, you will see that if we are unable to screen blood from you at the appropriate intervals and you are (unknowingly) infected, this could adversely affect another couple if we went ahead and treated you resulting in contamination for the laboratory (or vice versa).
The practical consequence of this is that we require you to have screening bloods within six months of becoming a patient with us or planning an IVF/ICSI. Further screening is required within 30 days of the IVF/ICSI cycle taking place. This is an EU and Irish legislative requirement. In accordance with the legislation, we are authorised only to accept results from specific medical testing laboratories. Details of these laboratories can be obtained from our staff. Patients attending for IUI treatment will be tested initially and screening must be performed within six months of the IUI taking place.
If you have any queries on this or other matters, please ask a member of staff and they will happily try to deal with your enquiries. Just also kindly bear in mind that the risk of these instances occurring are extraordinarily rare and that screening is carried out to minimise future risks for you and for couples attending at Sims IVF.