Victims of UK’s infected blood scandal to start receiving final compensation payments this year
Campaigners have fought for decades to bring official failings to light and secure government compensation. The inquiry was finally approved in 2017, and over the past four years, it reviewed evidence from more than 5,000 witnesses and over 100,000 documents.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apologized for the decades-long moral failure at the heart of our national life on Monday. The long-awaited report marked a day of shame for the British state, he said.
Many of those affected were people with hemophilia, a condition affecting the blood’s ability to clot. In the 1970s, patients were given a new treatment from the United States that contained plasma from high-risk donors, including prison inmates, who were paid to give blood.
Because manufacturers of the treatment mixed plasma from thousands of donations, one infected donor would compromise the whole batch.
The report said around 1,250 people with bleeding disorders, including 380 children, were infected with HIV -tainted blood products. Three-quarters of them have died. Up to 5,000 others who received the blood products developed chronic hepatitis C.
An estimated 26,800 others were also infected with hepatitis C after receiving blood transfusions, often given in hospitals after childbirth, surgery, or an accident, the report said.
