http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23040501-31477,00.htmlDEFENCE officials are urgently checking whether Australian soldiers have been exposed to contaminated blood amid fears 18 British troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan received tainted transfusions.
The search began on Thursday after Britain's Ministry of Defence said 18 personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan were at risk of contracting diseases including HIV, hepatitis or syphilis from blood sourced from the US that had not been properly screened.
News of the blood scare came yesterday as the Australian Defence Force told The Weekend Australian that 31 soldiers, including members of the elite special forces task group, had been wounded in action in Afghanistan since 2001.
ADF spokesman Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said he believed the risk of Australian troops being infected was low but checks were being made.
"It's a very low probability any of our people would have been infected," he said.
British officials said the soldiers and six civilian contractors given transfusions would probably have died without them.
US military authorities later confirmed that some batches of blood had not been properly screened after being donated.
None of the four Australian soldiers killed on active service in Afghanistan was alive long enough to have received a blood transfusion.
However, several critically injured soldiers have received transfusions from coalition military hospitals, including members of the special forces.
Combat engineer Sergeant Michael Lyddiard was seriously wounded in November while trying to defuse a roadside bomb in the south-central Oruzgan province.
After receiving emergency first aid, he was moved to a Dutch-run field hospital at the main Dutch-Australian base in Tarin Kowt. Once stabilised he was then flown to Germany for specialised care before returning to Australia.
Blood used by Dutch military doctors is fully screened for communicable diseases.
The 31 Australian soldiers wounded in Afghanistan suffered a range of injuries including severe bruising, concussion, fractures, gunshot and shrapnel injuries and severe blast trauma.
Requests for a breakdown of the number of special forces soldiers who were wounded in action was refused for operational reasons but it is understood they comprised the majority of the wounded.
Since the end of 2005 a total of 42 ADF personnel have been returned home from Afghanistan as a result of non-combat-related injuries or illness, defence said.
Four Australian soldiers have been killed in action since the start of Operation Slipper in 2001.
Sergeant Andrew Russell of the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) died of wounds when his patrol vehicle struck an anti-tank mine in 2002.
Trooper David "Poppy" Pearce died when the ASLAV vehicle he was driving was struck by a roadside bomb on October 8 last year.
SAS Sergeant Matthew Locke was shot and killed by an insurgent sniper during combat operations last October 25 while fellow special forces member Private Luke Worsley fell to Taliban small arms fire on November 23 last year.
Two army explosive detection dogs, Merlin and Razz, have also died on active service, Razz while serving with the special operations group.
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