Jameel Institute experts at Imperial provide economic perspective to the Infected Blood Inquiry

Set up in 2018, the Infected Blood Inquiry examines the circumstances in which treatment and blood transfusions provided by the UK national health services were contaminated with HIV and hepatitis between 1970 and 1991. The Inquiry commissioned a number of reports about the impact of infections consequent to the use of infected blood and blood products, including from researchers at the Jameel Institute at Imperial College London. Professor Katharina Hauck, deputy director, Jameel Institute and lead, Jameel Institute-Kenneth C Griffin Initiative for Economics of Pandemic Preparedness, and her team estimated three impacts: healthcare and social care costs to the NHS and individuals, income loss to the infected and their informal carers, and lost health due to earlier death and ill-health. The impacts were estimated for both Hepatitis C and HIV for modelled life trajectories between 1970 and 2021.