HIV, hepatitis and haemophilia

In the late 1960s, the haemophilia community was devastated by the news that haemophilia treatments (called clotting factor concentrates) manufactured from donated human blood had been responsible for transmitting the hepatitis B virus. This is a commonly encountered virus that can, in some circumstances, damage the liver. Then, towards the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s, the true horrors of the HIV and Hepatitis C epidemic permeated the haemophilia community – once again, carried in contaminated clotting factor concentrates. In a devastatingly short space of time, up to 60% of individuals with severe haemophilia in the UK and 95% of those in the USA had been infected with HIV.  To date, around two-thirds of those infected with HIV during this time developed AIDs and have died; the rest are responding well to current combinations of antiretroviral drugs.

Today, clotting factor concentrates manufactured from donated blood are subjected to rigorous viral inactivation steps during their production, which has greatly reduced the chances of viral contamination and given them an excellent safety record. Also, technological advances have led to the availability of clotting factor concentrates that are produced by genetic engineering (called recombinant clotting factors), and these are usually the first-choice treatment for newly diagnosed haemophilia patients in most developed countries.