Sign In
Learn bits
Health & Medicine, World Affairs
Mahesh

21/05/24 06:05 AM IST

UK’s contaminated blood scandal

In News
  • The report of an independent inquiry into the United Kingdom’s contaminated blood scandal will be published, and Britain is expected to shell out more than 10 billion pounds ($12.70 billion.
About NHS
  • The NHS is an inclusive public health service under government administration, which was established by the National Health Service Act of 1946 and subsequent legislation in 1948.
  • The entire population of the UK is covered, and health services are provided free of cost to the public, except for certain minimum charges.
  • The NHS constitutes four services — NHS in England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland.
  • It is the world’s fifth largest employer and the largest non-military public organisation, and wields significant market power.
  • By and large, the NHS is considered to have been an effective and efficient health service, some of its recent post-Brexit problems notwithstanding.
  • Medical services under the NHS are administered in three separate groups: general practitioner and dental services, hospital and specialist services, and local health authority services.
Contaminated Blood Scandal
  • During the 1970s and 1980s, thousands of people who had the blood-clotting disorder haemophilia, were given blood donated or sold by people who were infected with the HIV virus and hepatitis.
  • Tainted blood was also given to people who needed blood transfusions after childbirth or surgery.
  • In the early 1970s, the NHS started using a new treatment for haemophilia called Factor VIII.
  • This was a processed pharmaceutical product that was created by pooling plasma from many donors.
  • Factor VIII was considered to be a “wonder drug” for patients with classical haemophilia and Von Willebrand Syndrome (which is a bleeding disorder in which the patient’s blood cannot clot fully), more efficient and convenient than earlier treatments.
  • The nature of Factor VIII was such that even one infected donor could compromise the entire batch of the protein.
  • The product used by the NHS was imported from the United States, where a large volume of donated plasma at the time came from prisoners and users of intravenous drugs who were paid for their blood.
  • The inquiry report has estimated that more than 30,000 people were infected with HIV, hepatitis C or, as in the case of 1,250 haemophiliacs, both.
  • Nearly two-thirds of those who were infected with HIV later died of AIDS-related illnesses, and an unknown number transferred HIV to their partners.
  • The report said that 2,400-5,000 recipients of blood developed hepatitis C, with the exact figure not known yet, as symptoms can show up years later.
Major Findings
  • Several reports have stated that school children, some as young as 2 years old, were subjected to medical trials using infected blood products.
  • The majority of the children who enrolled are now dead. 
  • The documents also showed that doctors in haemophilia centres used blood products, even though they were widely known as likely to be contaminated.
  • As per the report, patients were “deliberately given Factor VIII, so they could be enrolled in clinical trials”.
  • Of the 122 pupils who attended Treloar’s College between 1974 and 1987, 75 have so far died of HIV and hepatitis C infections.
Govt. Response
  • It was only after 1985 that all Factor VIII products were heat-treated to kill the HIV virus. However, UK blood donations were not routinely screened for hep C until 1991.
  • Evidence provided to the inquiry suggests that the British government chose to turn a blind eye to the situation, mainly due to financial considerations.
  • According to a BBC report, official documents from the 1990s showed that cost concerns prevented the NHS from pursuing adequate testing or campaigns to raise awareness, despite many warnings in the mid-1970s that blood donations from the US carried risk of viral infection.
  • As early as 1953, the World Health Organisation (WHO), had warned of the hepatitis risks associated with the mass pooling of plasma products.
  • It urged that dried plasma should be prepared from pools of between 10 to 20 donors to reduce the risk of contamination.
Source- Indian Express

More Related Current Affairs View All

05 Mar

First-ever comprehensive survey of India’s river dolphins

'Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the results of the first-ever comprehensive population estimation of riverine dolphins – Gangetic and Indus dolphins – done in In

Read More

05 Mar

Arresting women at night

'The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in Deepa versus S. Vijayalakshmi and Others ruled that the legal provision in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, which

Read More

05 Mar

Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023

'The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) looking to wrap up public consultations on the draft Rules for the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 by Mar

Read More

India’s First Ai-Driven Magazine Generator

Generate Your Custom Current Affairs Magazine using our AI in just 3 steps