ARE YOU, or someone you know, planning on donating a kidney or some other organ to someone who needs an organ transplant?  Then here’s what you need to know.
To reduce the risk for transmission of HIV through living-donor organ transplantation, transplant centers should screen living donors for HIV, as close to the time of organ recovery and transplantation as possible, using sensitive tests for both chronic and acute infections, namely, serology and nucleic acid testing (NAT).
This is according to new guidelines issued by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 
This CDC recommendation has come on the heels of an American man contracting HIV from a kidney transplant, the first such case in more than 20 years. In The light of this development, CDC has responded by recommending new donor testing guidelines.
Today, the Washington-based National Press Foundation (NPF)’s Douglas Hopper, an Online Editor and Multimedia Consultant, brings us the story. Douglas is currently a Senior Writer and Communications Specialist at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Hopper reports: — The  US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) has made new recommendations for testing organ donors for HIV.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the CDC is urging “recommending hospitals test living donors for the virus that causes AIDS no more than seven days before their organs are removed and transplanted, following the first documented U.S. case of HIV transmission from a live organ donor in more than two decades.”
The story began in 2009, when a man contracted HIV after receiving a kidney transplant from a live organ donor in a New York hospital.  The donor had been tested, as the WSJ reports, more than two months before the transplant took place:
“The male donor acknowledged that he had engaged in unprotected sex with another man after he was screened for HIV, but before he donated the organ. The New York hospital tested the donor 79 days before transplant, when he showed no evidence of infection, but did not re-test him closer to the surgery that removed the organ.” (WSJ)
In light of this story and a subsequent investigation, the CDC is now revising its guidelines for testing donors, adding specific language about the timing of such screenings.
“Routine screening of organ donors for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has made transmission of HIV through organ transplantation rare in the United States. However, despite routine screening, transmission of HIV can be an uncommon complication of organ transplantation and is a public health concern.
In 2010, the New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH) was notified of a potential transplant-related HIV infection. This report summarizes the results of the subsequent public health investigation, which confirmed HIV transmission through transplantation of an organ from a living donor.
To reduce the risk for transmission of HIV through living-donor organ transplantation, transplant centers should screen living donors for HIV as close to the time of organ recovery and transplantation as possible, using sensitive tests for both chronic and acute infections, namely, serology and nucleic acid testing (NAT).
Furthermore, clinicians should inform transplant candidates of the potential risks for disease transmission and advise donors during evaluation of their obligation to avoid behaviors that would put them at risk for acquiring HIV before organ donation.
The report continues, explaining why the CDC is specifically recommending Nucleic acid testing (NAT):  
The availability of NAT now permits detection of HIV infection before antibodies develop and are detectable by serology. The window between time of HIV infection and time of development of detectable HIV-specific antibodies ranges from 3 to 8 weeks, whereas with NAT, the window (i.e., the “eclipse period” for the time from infection to detection of virus in blood) is estimated to be 8–10 days.