A review in to how patients were infected with hepatitis C and HIV through contaminated blood in the 1970s and early 1980s, has been published by the Department of Health. Self-sufficiency in blood products in England and Wales: a chronology from 1973 to 1991 is the result of a review of surviving documents from 1973 (when a decision was made to pursue self-sufficiency for England and Wales) to 1991 (when a validated screening test for hepatitis C was introduced in the UK). The report concludes that:
- Nobody acted wrongly in the light of the facts that were available to them at the time;
- Every effort was made by the Government to pursue self sufficiency in blood products during the 1970s and early 1980s ;
- The more serious consequences of hepatitis C, only became apparent in 1989 and the development of reliable tests for its recognition in 1991;
- Tests to devise a procedure to make the hepatitis C virus inactive were developed and introduced as soon as practicable;
- Self sufficiency in blood products would not have prevented haemophiliacs from being infected with hepatitis C. Even if the UK had been self sufficient, the prevalence of hepatitis C in the donor population would have been enough to spread the virus throughout the pool.