London: Britain’s government said on Thursday the first of thousands of victims of a historical contaminated blood scandal would be compensated in the coming days, with 10 people offered a total of over 13 million pounds ($16.54 million).
More than 30,000 people contracted hepatitis and HIV from infected blood and blood products in the 1970s and 1980s from Britain’s state-funded National Health Service, many derived from donations by higher risk groups such as prisoners which were pooled together.
A damning report into the scandal blamed the state and doctors for failures that killed over 3,000 people.
The first few people had accepted their offers and were due to receive payment in the coming days, the government said, adding that another 25 had been invited to make their claim for compensation and would receive offers after doing so.
The government has allocated 11.8 billion pounds of its budget to deliver compensation payments, which will not be taxable.
Compensation comes as the Labour government, in power since July, tries to fix what it has described as a 22 billion-pound “black hole” in the public finances Prime Minister Keir Starmer has blamed on his predecessors.
“No amount of compensation can fully address the suffering as a result of this scandal, but I hope this shows that we are doing everything possible to deliver significant compensation to people infected and affected,” said cabinet office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds.
The previous Conservative government announced in May that some victims would receive interim payments before the compensation scheme it designed was up and running. ($1 = 0.7861 pounds) (Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Paul Sandle)
