Hepatitis C group demands independent inquiry

AN independent inquiry must be held to get closure on all outstanding blood contamination issues involving the blood bank, a victims’ support group urged yesterday.

Transfusion Positive, a group representing people infected with hepatitis C through blood transfusions, said it was not good enough to have the Irish Blood Transfusion Service investigate itself.

The group was commenting after a IBTS report found there was no evidence women became infected with hepatitis C from anti-D products outside the two timeframes the blood bank had identified and accepted.

Anti-D is given to rhesus-negative mothers who have given birth to rhesus-positive babies. Contaminated anti-D products infected more than 1,000 Irish women with hepatitis C.

The IBTS has only accepted responsibility for infections from 1977 to 1979 and from 1991 to 1994.

Copies of the blood bank’s report, which took three years to complete and runs to hundreds of pages, have already been given to Transfusion Positive and Positive Action.

Health Minister Micheál Martin has not concluded his review of the report and has yet to issue a statement on it.

IBTS deputy medical director Dr Emer Lawlor said the discovery of a number of individuals who had been exposed to hepatitis C outside the two timeframes was consistent with the regular background incidence of hepatitis C in the general population.

Transfusion Positive chairperson Maura Long called for an end to the blood bank investigating itself, and said an independent inquiry must take place to bring final closure to this protracted and ongoing scandal.

Ms Long said the group wants Mr Martin to hold a full independent inquiry into all outstanding blood contamination issues, including the failure of the blood bank to immediately contact 31 donors who tested positive for hepatitis C antibodies in the 90s.

“We have had three inquiries so far and still haven’t got to the root of the problem. So there must be full and final closure to this scandal,” she said.

Positive Action chairperson Detta Warnock said nothing less than an independent inquiry into the entire anti-D scandal would satisfy the group.