Scandal in the United Kingdom. The public health system (NHS) and the Government “covered up” contaminated blood transfusions that infected more than 30,000 people with HIV and hepatitis C for decadesaccording to a report made public this Monday.
The investigation, carried out for five years in the United Kingdom by former judge Brian Langstaff, determined that the infections and deaths of these patients They were not an “accident” but that they could “mostly have been avoided”, since victims were knowingly exposed to “unacceptable” risks.
The former magistrate emphasizes that This scandal “continues to occur” today, since some of the infected patients “continue to die every week.”
Among the series of errors detected, it is reported that the British health authorities were “too slow” in responding to the risks and a ““licensing failure” on imports from US donors that “it was understood that were less safe than national treatments”.
“The inept and fragmented donation system in the UK at the time meant that there were failures to ensure sufficient supply of so-called Factor VIII from British donors,” the report notes.
There has also been evidence that suggests that there was children who were treated “unnecessarily” with “unsafe” treatments“and some of them were used as “research objects”” while the risks of contracting hepatitis and HIV were ignored in a school where students were treated for hemophilia.
This controversial case occurred at the Lord Mayor Treloar College boarding school, in the English county of Hampshire (England), in the 1970s and 1980s. “Very few of the treated students escaped being infected,” the report explains. In fact, of the 122 students with hemophilia who attended that center between 1970 and 1987Only 30 are still alive today..
An “avoidable” health disaster
In the 70s, a new treatment for hemophilia that required a great quantity of blood reserves, which forced the United Kingdom to import it from the United States, where donors – many of them from risk groups such as drug addicts, sex workers and prisoners – received payment for their blood.
The scandal originated during the 70s and 80s, when thousands of people who required blood transfusions and medications for hemophilia in public health were exposed to blood contaminated with HIV, Hepatitis B, C and chronic viral diseases due to the lack of analysis to control donations.
Blood contaminated with hepatitis C continued to be used until 1991two years after the virus was formally identified.
More than 30,000 public health patients could have been infected, and over the years about 2,900 adults and children died as a consequence of one of the largest health disasters in the country’s history.
After the publication of this devastating report, the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunakpointed out in Parliament that the findings of this investigation represent a “day of shame for the British state”, by involving ministers, government officials and people working in the health service.
“The outcome of this investigation should shake our nation to the core,” said Sunak, who He apologized for something that “should never have happened.”
The prime minister announced that the Government will launch aid for those affected and their families, although we will have to wait until this Tuesday to find out the details of these compensations.
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