PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Blood: Contamination (13 January 2015)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of deaths caused by infection with HIV or hepatitis C through exposure to contaminated blood and blood products.

Asked by:
Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat)

The Review of the Support Available to Individuals Infected with Hepatitis C and/or HIV by NHS-supplied Blood Transfusions or Blood Products and their Dependants, which this Government published in January 2011, included estimates that around 1,300 individuals had been infected with HIV through treatment with National Health Service-supplied blood or blood products, of whom approximately 400 remained alive at the end of 2010. Similarly, it is estimated that around 33,000 individuals may have been infected with hepatitis C, of whom it is estimated that approximately 9,000 remained alive in 2003. The Department does not hold information on the cause of death; however, it is likely that many of those infected with hepatitis C will have died of unrelated causes.

Answered by:
Jane Ellison (Conservative)
16 January 2015