Contaminated blood scandal in the United Kingdom

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Infected blood scandal

A bottle of factor VIII, a product used to treat haemophilia
Date	1970s to early 1990s
Location	United Kingdom
Cause	Infected factor VIII and factor IX blood products
Deaths	2,900+[1]
Inquiries	Infected Blood Inquiry

From the 1970s to the early 1990s, tens of thousands of people were infected with hepatitis C and HIV as a result of receiving infected blood or infected clotting factor products in the United Kingdom.^[2] Many of the products were imported from the United States, and distributed to patients by the National Health Service.^[3][4] Most recipients had haemophilia or had received a blood transfusion following childbirth or surgery.^[5] It has been estimated that more than 30,000 patients received contaminated blood, resulting in the deaths of at least 3,000 people.^[4] In July 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May announced an independent public inquiry into the scandal, for which she was widely praised as successive governments going back to the 1980s had refused such an inquiry.^[6] May stated that "the victims and their families who have suffered so much pain and hardship deserve answers as to how this could possibly have happened."^[7] The final report was published in seven volumes on 20 May 2024, concluding that the scandal could have been largely avoided, patients were knowingly exposed to "unacceptable risks", and that doctors, the government and NHS tried to cover up what happened by "hiding the truth".^[8][9]

People with haemophilia were principally infected via the plasma-derived product known as factor VIII, a processed pharmaceutical product sourced from the United States and elsewhere. The creation of these products involved dangerous plasma donation pooling manufacturing processes that led to infected products.^[10] Large groups of paid donors were used, as many as 60,000 per batch, and included prisoners and drug addicts. It only required one infected donor to contaminate an entire batch, which would then infect all of the recipients.^[11]

This was at a time when the practice of paying donors for whole blood in the United States had effectively ceased. The UK did not import whole blood^[12] from abroad, but it did import large quantities of factor VIII given to those infected, as described in the documentary Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal. The UK imported these products because it did not produce enough of its own, and efforts to achieve self-sufficiency were inadequately funded.^[13][14] A study published in 1986 showed that 76% of those who received commercial clotting-factor products became infected with HIV, as opposed to none of those who only received the previous treatment – cryoprecipitate.^[15]

While then Prime Minister David Cameron apologised^[16] on behalf of the British government to those affected, no government, healthcare or pharmaceutical entity in the UK has formally admitted any liability in the scandal. As part of an ongoing public inquiry, 3,000 surviving victims were awarded interim compensation payments in August 2022, to be paid urgently due to the extremely high death rate of survivors.^[17]

On 20 May 2024, the six year long "Infected Blood Inquiry" was finally reported covering more than 2000 pages "the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS".^[18]

On the following day, 21 May 2024, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, John Glen, announced a new Infected Blood Compensation Authority to administer a new compensation scheme for victims.^[19]