Between the 1970s and early 1990s, more than 30,000 people were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C due to contaminated blood or blood products. Around 3,000 are known to have died, but many more who unwittingly contracted hepatitis C may also have died.In his report due to be released on Monday, Sir Brian Langstaff is expected to detail the mistakes that led to the scandal's deaths.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is set to apologise following the publication of the report after a six-year inquiry.
However, a lot of blood was brought in from high risk donors like drug users and prison inmates. Factor 8 was produced by pooling plasma from tens of thousands of donors, but if one was infected with a virus, it would spread through the entire batch.It wasn't until 1991 that blood donations were routinely screened for hepatitis C, 18 months after the virus was initially identified. This is how the scandal unfolded.