ASTANA, November 15 (RIA Novosti) - A patient has contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, during a blood transfusion in a hospital in southern Kazakhstan, local prosecutors reported Wednesday.

"The donor was not examined before the transfusion," prosecutors said.

HIV infections in the post-Soviet Central Asian state came into the limelight after 79 children and eight mothers contracted the virus in hospitals in the southern Kazakh city of Chimkent. Eight children have since died.

Prosecutors are conducting checks of blood transfusion norms across the republic. Experts said un-sterilized medical instruments and violations of blood transfusion requirements were to blame for the infection cases.

The health minister, the official in charge of the medical control body, as well as the regional governor, were dismissed in the wake of the tragedy.