The UK government is preparing to pay approximately 10 billion pounds (12 billion dollars) to 4,000 survivors and bereaved relatives of those who were wrongly administered infected blood between the 1970s and 1990s, which the UK government deliberately covered up.
Decades after the scandal in 2017, an investigation was launched by then-Prime Minister Theresa May. It revealed that over 30,000 people were infected with viruses such as HIV and hepatitis through contaminated blood samples.
Approximately, 3,000 people are believed to have died, with more deaths expected to follow, even more were left with lifelong illnesses. Inquiry Chairman Sir Brian Langstaff said: “What I have found is that disaster was no accident. People put their trust in doctors and the government to keep them safe and that trust was betrayed.”
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was “a day of shame for the British state.” The Conservative leader added: “I want to make a wholehearted unequivocal apology for this terrible injustice,” he told parliament.
The 2,527-page report on the scandal showed that deliberate attempts were also made to conceal the gross misconduct and that the whole incident “could largely have been avoided.” During the cover-up, there was evidence of officials destroying documents.
Langstaff said that the cover-up was not an orchestrated conspiracy, instead it was done more subtly resulting in more chilling implications.
Campaigners commented on their decades-long journey to justice: “We feel emotional at the moment in the sense that it’s like a 40-year-old fight and it’s coming to an end and we’ve come to the end of our energy levels,” Suresh Vaghela, said to Al Jazeera.