Channel 4 News published this video item, entitled “Infected blood inquiry hears from former schoolboys infected with HIV” – below is their description.
As schoolboys, they were taken into a room five at a time and told they had months to live. The boys of Treloar’s College had been infected with HIV as part of their treatment for haemophilia.
They were some of the youngest victims of the infected blood scandal, the biggest medical disaster in NHS history. Of around 100 students affected, just 28 are still alive.
Today it was their turn to give evidence to a public inquiry which is seeking to find out how the tragedy could have been avoided. We went to meet them.
Channel 4 News YouTube Channel
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In This Story: HIV
The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of Lentivirus (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive.
Without treatment, average survival time after infection with HIV is estimated to be 9 to 11 years, depending on the HIV subtype. In most cases, HIV is a sexually transmitted infection and occurs by contact with or transfer of blood, pre-ejaculate, semen, and vaginal fluids. Research has shown (for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples) that HIV is untransmittable through condomless sexual intercourse if the HIV-positive partner has a consistently undetectable viral load.
Non-sexual transmission can occur from an infected mother to her infant during pregnancy, during childbirth by exposure to her blood or vaginal fluid, and through breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells.
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