AT least 54 haemophilia patients in Shanghai have been diagnosed with AIDS after being given contaminated blood products.

To help these victims, the local government has been providing free medical treatment and a monthly subsidy of 1,000 yuan (US$121) each since last year.

According to the latest statistics from the city's Centre for Disease Control, among the city's 886 HIV carriers and AIDS patients, 6.5 per cent are victims of contaminated blood products with the other main sources being drug-taking and unsafe sex.

Haemophilia is a bleeding disorder caused by a blood-clotting deficiency. Supplying a blood coagulation factor through transfusion is the main treatment for the disease.

Local haemophilia patients suspected that they were being infected with HIV after using the blood coagulation factor produced by Shanghai Bioproducts Research Centre, the nation's major producer of blood products.

In China, blood products were treated with decontamination technology until July 1995 when the Ministry of Health forbade further use of the technology when it was found that it failed to kill the HIV virus.

Local haemophilia patient Tao Tao, 13, was the first AIDS victim to be diagnosed in 1998 and he died two years later.

According to Wu Zhongze, Tao Tao's father, a total of 11 haemophilia patients have now died. However, they were not tested for HIV before their deaths.

"It's very hard to bring a case to court. Local courts have not accepted such cases for some time," said a local lawyer who was dealing with three such cases and who asked not to be identified.

After three years of litigation, the Changning District Intermediate Court has ruled that Wu may obtain 100,000 yuan compensation for his son's death. However, the blood products producers and the hospital that treated him were judged to be not guilty as there was insufficient proof to show that polluted blood was a direct cause of AIDS.

Other haemophilia patients and family members infected with HIV have received the same compensation.

(Star News)