Victims of the infected blood scandal in the 1970s and 80s are hopeful for getting some closure as the inquiry into it is set to publish its final report in May.
In the inquiry team report, Sir Brian Langstaff, former judge of High Court of England and Wales, chair of the public inquiry, said the document on the scandal will ‘set out and explain the many failings at systemic, collective and individual levels over more than six decades.’
The scandal began when about 5,000 people with haemophilia and other bleeding disorders in the UK were enrolled in clinical trials for treatment. People with haemophilia A have a shortage of a clotting agent known as Factor VIII. People with haemophilia B don't have enough Factor IX.
In the 1970s, a new treatment was developed to replace the missing clotting agents, made from donated human blood plasma. Much of the blood had been imported from US prisons, and taken from high-risk donors such as sex workers, drug users and alcoholics who were paid.
Whole batches of the replacement Factor VIII and IX products from the high-risk donors were contaminated with viruses.
As a result, the people with blood disorders in the trials were infected with lethal conditions like HIV and hepatitis. A total of 1,170 of those people have died because of their infections, including many children.
- Victims of the infected blood scandal to receive thousands in compensation
- Infected blood transfusions killed nearly 2000 in the UK
- Victims of NHS blood scandal to receive £100,000
After years of campaigning by the victims and their families, a public inquiry began in 2017 to gather evidence about the scandal and publish a framework for compensation.
In the report on the compensation framework published in April 2023, Sir Langstaff said: ‘Not only do the infections themselves and their consequences merit compensation, but so too do the wrongs done by the way in which authority responded to what happened.’
Since then about 4,500 interim compensation payments of £100,000 have been made to victims and bereaved partners but thousands of families are still left without redress.
The Government told the Guardian that it would decide the final compensation payments to surviving victims and some bereaved partners ahead of the inquiry’s full report.
This promise of compensation and the publishing of the final inquiry report has offered the survivors a glimmer of hope after years of seeking justice.
In one of the evidence reports by the inquiry team, one survivor said: ‘There are many of our community who although will no longer be around for the final days of the inquiry, the knowledge of knowing that their loved ones will be properly compensated, when they are gone, will give many some peace of mind before they pass.’
Another said: ‘My sole wish now [in my 80’s] is that everything can be brought to a quick conclusion and payments made in time to still benefit those of us who have survived until now.’