Around 380 children have been infected with HIV through blood products in the UK, an inquiry has found.
Patients were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products imported from the US during the 1970s and 1980s. It is thought about 2,400 people died as a result.
At least 175 children were initially reported to be infected, but a new inquiry into the scandal has estimated the number to be more than double.
Jenni Richards KC, counsel to the Infected Blood Inquiry, said the 175 figure derived from the HIV Haemophilia Litigation as the number who were still children at the time of the settlement.
“The Inquiry estimates that the number of people who were children when infected is more than two times that number,” she wrote.
The inquiry now says some 380 children were infected, making up a third of the total number.
The new estimate was based on the proportion of children among people with bleeding disorders, using data published in The Lancet in 1996 and figures provided by the UK Haemophilia Doctors’ Organisation.
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In what has been labelled the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS, the infected blood scandal occurred after the UK struggled to keep up with demand for treatments tackling the blood-clotting condition hemophilia and other bleeding disorders – so began importing infected products from overseas.
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Most of the patients affected had been relying on regular injections of the US product Factor VIII to survive.
Patients were unaware they were being treated with contaminated products from people who were paid to donate, including prisoners and drug addicts, and were injected for years despite repeated warnings at the top of government.
Some victims were also infected after receiving blood transfusions.
Decades after the first contaminations, new cases of HIV and hepatitis have continued to be diagnosed, resulting in many early deaths.
