Infected blood still used in the UK after virus detection began

May 10, 2024 Vaseline stjohnson 0

  • By Chloe Hayward and Hugh Pym
  • Health producer and health editor, BBC News

Screenshot, Caz Challis contracted hepatitis C after receiving contaminated blood transfusions

The NHS continued to provide infected blood to patients after testing for the virus was introduced in the UK.

Screening, including for hepatitis C, began in September 1991, but there was no process to prevent the use of old, contaminated blood.

BBC News has learned that untested and potentially contaminated blood could have been stored for up to 10 years.

We have identified patients infected after September 1, 1991, who currently cannot claim compensation.

Plans for victims to claim financial compensation are only open to those treated with infected blood before the introduction of routine virus testing.

Lawyers told BBC News that the rules on eligibility should be changed.

‘Fighting for every crumb’

Caz Challis was diagnosed with cancer in 1992 and received several blood transfusions over the next 12 months. In 1993, she was diagnosed with hepatitis C before undergoing a stem cell transplant.

The NHS trust where she was treated confirmed the virus came from blood she received during her cancer treatment.

She is one of the many victims who are not entitled to compensation. She says she has been left “fighting for every crumb” and feeling “like you don’t count.”

Beatrice Morgan, an attorney with the Leigh Day law firm, represents more than 300 victims of infected blood. She calls for compensation schemes to be extended to those who received infected blood after the date routine screening was introduced.

“Although there was a national launch of testing of new donations beginning September 1, 1991, blood already in the system was not tested,” Morgan says. “We have evidence to show that there was untested blood that escaped through the net.”

The infected blood scandal is one of the biggest treatment disasters in NHS history: 3,000 people who were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after receiving contaminated blood and blood products have died.

Many victims were hemophiliacs and received infected blood products as part of their treatment. But thousands more received contaminated blood transfusions after accidents, emergencies or childbirth.

After years of campaigning by victims, in 2017 the Infected Blood Inquiry was announced. Led by former judge Sir Brian Langstaff, it heard evidence between 2019 and 2023.

During the inquiry hearings, several doctors confirmed there was still untested blood in the NHS supply after testing for the virus began.

“There was a lot of uncertainty about what we were doing,” said Dr. Frank Boulton, who was working in the west of England at the time. “I was a little nervous about the possibility of HCV (hepatitis C) emerging among some of our recipients.”

As evidence, Professor Marcela Contreras, a blood expert, told the inquiry that in some parts of the country there was blood in the system that had not been tested for viruses, including HIV, until October 1995. “Some rare blood groups” they could freeze.” for 10 years,” she added.

Before the tests were introduced, doctors had raised concerns about stocks of untested blood products in the system administered to patients.

In February 1991, Dr John Cash of Scotland’s National Blood Transfusion Service wrote a letter to Dr Harold Gunson, who at the time was director of the National Blood Transfusion Service.

He asked when a decision would be made on whether existing blood stocks would be tested, saying: “The task is feasible but formidable.”

No national policy was ever announced and testing was done piecemeal, if at all.

During the inquiry into infected blood, Sir Brian Langstaff noted that some old blood donations were not tested and said: “If correct, it may have implications for the accuracy of the start date (of compensation schemes).”

The investigation into the infected blood scandal will conclude on May 20.

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