RTÉ News has established that another haemophiliac has died as a result of receiving contaminated blood products. This latest death, from an AIDS related illness, brings the death toll to 77.
Two hundred and fifty-two people with haemophilia were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from blood products, most of which were imported from the United States. The Irish Haemophilia Society has now confirmed to RTÉ News that another of its members has died as a direct result.
A spokesperson said the man contracted HIV from using clotting agents and has now died of an AIDS related illness. They declined to give any further information.
The death toll now stands at 77. The total number of haemophiliacs in the country is only 400. This is also the third person with haemophilia to die due to contaminated blood products since the Lindsay Tribunal began its public hearings.
One witness, John Berry, died last year from liver cancer brought on by the Hepatitis C virus.
The Lindsay Tribunal was told today that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of haemophiliacs who have died after becoming infected with hepatitis C from blood products. An English expert witness, Dr Paul Giangrande, said today that the death toll in the UK had more than quadrupled in the past ten years.
The Tribunal resumed proceedings in central Dublin today after its summer recess with evidence from Dr Giangrande, who works at a Haemophilia Treatment Centre in Oxford.
He said that a study published in 1992 found that 51 people with haemophilia in the UK had died as a result of liver disease connected with contracting hepatitis C from blood products.
Dr Giangrande warned, however, that an updated study will show that the death toll now stands at 212. He said that current medical treatment is of limited use because a patient must begin using it before the hepatitis C virus damages the liver.
More than 150 people with haemophilia here contracted hepatitis C from contaminated blood products. The Tribunal has now adjourned until Thursday because an expert witness from the United States could not travel to Ireland due to aviation congestion caused by last week's terrorist attacks.
