New York, Mar 18 : An organ recipient in America has contracted HIV from a kidney donor, who had unprotected sex post-screening.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the donor passed initial screening but the man had unprotected sex with another man before the 2009 surgery.

Officials said testing on the patient conducted a year after surgery revealed the person was HIV positive. Since the patient did not participate in behaviour that would put them at risk for HIV, the donor was tested and discovered to be HIV positive.

Although the donor didn't test positive 79 days prior to surgery, he had a history of syphilis and sex with men.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the state alerted transplant centres on March 15, and asked them to do a second round of testing on donors about a week before surgery.

Agency spokeswoman Claudia Hutton said the chances of transmitting the virus through an organ transplant remain very low.

"Now that we've seen this can happen, it's reasonable to inform the transplant centres to do a second round of tests on donors a week or less before surgery," the New York Daily News quoted Hutton as saying.

This is the first confirmed case of HIV transmission through an organ transplant in the country since centres began testing for the virus in 1985. (ANI)