Report Calls for Compensation for People Infected by HIV Through Illegal Blood Sales in China

A new report (.pdf), "jointly published by the Korekata AIDS Law Center in Beijing and the U.S.-based non-governmental organization Asia Catalyst," calls for the Chinese government to conduct "a full and independent investigation into the number of people affected" by illegal blood selling in central China in the 1990s that helped to spread HIV, "an official apology to the people affected, as well as compensation," BMJ reports.

"A 2007 Ministry of Health report put the number of people infected with HIV as a result of receiving illegal blood or tainted blood infusions and still alive at 65,100, but [Li Dan, founder of the Korekata center,] puts the figure at closer to 100,000," according to BMJ. Mark Stirling, country coordinator in China for UNAIDS, which funded the report, said, "UNAIDS supports efforts to establish a national mechanism to provide compensation to persons infected with HIV through transfusion of contaminated blood products in China in a standardized and transparent manner," the journal reports (Parry, 3/8).